we conceal ourselves

Like cuttlefish we conceal ourselves, 

we darken the atmosphere in which we move; 

we are not transparent. I pine for one to whom

 I can speak my first thoughts; thoughts which

 represent me truly, which are no better and no worse than I; 

thoughts which have the bloom on them, which alone 

can be sacred and divine. Our sin and shame 

prevent our expressing even the innocent thoughts 

we have. I know of no one to whom I can

 be transparent instinctively. I live the life of the cuttlefish; 

another appears, and the element in which I move is tinged 

and I am concealed. My first thoughts are azure; 

there is a bloom and a dew on them; they are papillaceous feelers

 which I put out, tender, innocent.

 Only to a friend can I expose them.

~ Henry David Thoreau

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below high cliffs - ten poems

1

Below high cliffs

I slash and I burn

there's vegetables and grain

to boil and steam

to satisfy the present

to brighten old age

looking at a tree in the yard

I count its falls and springs

2

Below high cliffs 

my companions are the ancients

having reached the source

here I rest

others of more mystic persuasion 

study koans to death

wait beside stumps for rabbits

notch boats to find lost swords

3

Below high cliffs

all day I see plants

no sign of people

yellow leaves in the wind

birds call at dusk from the valley

the mountain moon rises at night

a crane takes flight from a pine

and showers my robe with dew

4

Below high cliffs

tigers and snakes are my neighbors

once I forgot my mind

their natures suddenly became tame

people born in this world

all have something divine

mouths of teeth heads of hair

why can't they be kind

5

Below high cliffs

unaware of the source

wherever you turn is karma

chaos and confusion

in order to see the truth

look beyond your senses

it's always been this way

the spring flows all around you

6

Below high cliffs

serene in solitude

not visited by time

the mind creates the world

the window holds a setting moon

the stove contains a dying fire

pity the sleeping man

startled from his butterfly dream

7

Below high cliffs

a white-haired old man

his robe with no hem 

his pants with no lets

practicing zazen at night

working his fields by day

herein lies the Path

where else could it be

8

Below high cliffs

I face a thousand mountains

one sense finds the source

all six relax

white clouds drift

green water ripples

beyond movement and stillness

there's another world

9

Below high cliffs

I don't dress up by body

I eat roots and wear plants

my socks are hemp my shoes are sedge

dense bamboo shades my windows

thick moss covers the steps in front

desires die in the quiet

cares disappear it's so still

10

Below high cliffs

you eat and sleep your fill

indulge desire and lethargy

idle away the months and years

until old age and illness arrive

and a thousand pains afflict you

digging a well when you're thirsty

you endure heat in vain

~ Stonehouse

from: Book Two Gathas, "The Zen Works of Stonehouse"

by Red Pine

art by Huang Kung-wang

.

.

dew light

Now in the blessed days of more and less

when the news about time is that each day

there is less of it I know none of that

as I walk out through the early garden

only the day and I are here with no

before or after and the dew looks up.

without a number or a present age

~ W. S. Merwin

in every moment

.

No one imagines that a symphony 

is supposed to improve in quality

 as it goes along or that the whole

 object of playing it is to reach

 the finale. The point of music

 is discovered in every moment

 of playing and listening to it. 

 

It is the same I feel with the 

greater part of our lives 

and if we are unduly absorbed

 in improving them we may forget

 altogether to live them.





~ Alan Watts

 

 

 

love is every only

love is every only god

who spoke this earth so glad and big

even a thing all small and sad

man,may his mighty briefness dig

for love beginning means return

seas who could sing so deep and strong

one querying wave will whitely yearn

from each last shore and home come young

so truly perfectly the skies

by merciful love whispered were,

completes its brightness with your eyes

any illimitable star

~ e.e.cummings

to my teacher

.

An old grave hidden away at the foot of a deserted hill, 

Overrun with rank weeds growing unchecked year after year; 

There is no one left to tend the tomb, 

And only an occasional woodcutter passes by. 

Once I was his pupil, a youth with shaggy hair, 

Learning deeply from him by the Narrow River. 

One morning I set off on my solitary journey 

And the years passed between us in silence. 

Now I have returned to find him at rest here; 

How can I honor his departed spirit? 

I pour a dipper of pure water over his tombstone 

And offer a silent prayer. 

The sun suddenly disappears behind the hill 

And I’m enveloped by the roar of the wind in the pines. 

I try to pull myself away but cannot; 

A flood of tears soaks my sleeves.

~ Ryokan

art by Thomas Wood

near

When the soul leaves the body, it is no longer under the burden 
and control of space and time.  The soul is free; 
 distance and separation hinder it no more.  

The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us. 
 Meister Eckhart was once asked, Where does the soul of a person go
 when the person dies?  He said, no place.  Where else would the soul be going?
  Where else is the eternal world?  It can be nowhere other than here. 

 We have falsely spatialized the eternal world.  We have driven the eternal 
out into some kind of distant galaxy.  Yet the eternal world 
does not seem to be a place but rather a different state of being.  

The soul of the person goes no place because there is no place else to go. 
 This suggests that the dead are here with us, in the air that we are
 moving through all the time.  

The only difference between us the the dead
 is that they are now in an invisible form  You cannot see them 
with the human eye.  But you can sense the presence of those you love
who have died.  With the refinement of your soul, 
you can sense them.  You feel that they are near.

~ John O'Donohue

from Anam Cara

art by Roderick Maclver

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may 

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang 

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing 

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone 

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 

it's always ourselves we find in the sea

~ e. e. cummings

magna carta

.

.

Today is the anniversary of the day King John of England placed his seal on the Magna Carta, granting basic liberties to his subjects. He wasn't the first English king to grant a charter, but he was the first to have it forced on him by his barons. He had taxed the Church and the barons heavily to fund the Third Crusade, defend his holdings in Normandy, and pay for unsuccessful wars, and England was on the brink of civil war. The charter limited the monarchy's absolute power and paved the way for the formation of Parliament, and it is the nearest thing to a "Bill of Rights" that Britain has ever had. It guaranteed, among other things, that 

"No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land."

Of course, John had no intention of upholding the document, and it was repealed almost immediately on the grounds that he gave his seal under duress. But the idea had taken root, and through a succession of subsequent charters, it became the basis for the British legal system and, in turn, the legal systems of most of the world's democracies. Parts of the United States Constitution were lifted directly from the Magna Carta, and it is so central to our own idea of law that the American Bar Association erected a monument at the meadow of Runnymede. The yew tree, under which the signing is believed to have taken place, still stands.

Alive today, the yew tree at Runnymede has lived over 2,000 years.

with thanks to writers almanac

at home everywhere

In reality there is only the source, dark in itself,

making everything shine. 

Unperceived, it causes perception. 

Unfelt, it causes feeling. 

Unthinkable, it causes thought. 

Non-being, it gives birth to being. 

It is the immovable background of motion. 

Once you are there, you are at home everywhere.

–Nisargadatta Maharaj

from I am That

translated by Maurice Frydman

when pain is great

When the pain is great,

 go with the pain. 

Let it take you. 

Open your palms and your body to the pain. 

It comes in waves, like a tide, 

and you must be open as a vessel

 lying on the beach—letting it fill you up, 

and then retreating leaving you empty and clear.

 And with a deep breath

 (it has to be as deep as the pain) 

one reaches a kind of inner freedom from the pain,

 as though the pain that you experience 

were not yours but the body’s. 

The spirit lays the body on the altar.

~  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

to myself

.

Even when I forget you

I go on looking for you

I believe I would know you

I keep remembering you

sometimes long ago but then

other times I am sure you

were here a moment before

and the air is still alive

around where you were and I 

think then I can recognize

you who are always the same

who pretend to be time but 

you are not time and who speak

in the words but you are not 

what they say you who are not 

lost when I do not find you

.

~ W. S. Merwin

from Present Company

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empty-handed in the end

Our lives, the beauty and abundance of the world,

 are freely given. We enter the world empty-handed

in the beginning and leave it empty-handed in the end.

No doubt there is pleasure in the finer things of life,

in all that is soft to the touch and pleasing to the eye.

While such things do gratify the senses, they mean nothing

to the soul, unless the Real shines through them.

And the Real only appears when the self disappears.

 When one looks beyond one's wants one begins to see

other's needs.  Possessions then seem less desirable.

One is less minded to acquire the things of the world

and more inclined to give them away. The more one

gives the freer one feels. The giver receives as much

as the receiver, for giving is a relief to the soul.

It cannot breathe unless the load is lightened.

The biblical phrase, "Cast your bread upon the waters,"

is meant, to entrust a part of your sustenance to the waves

of the divine bounty.  Trust in the tide that flows through

all that is an will be.

You will find, in the end, that what you truly possess is

what you have given away.

~ Pir Zia Inayat-Kan

from Saraced Chivalry

I, myself am distraction

.

Suppose that my “poverty” be a hunger for spiritual riches: 

suppose that by pretending to empty myself, pretending to be silent, 

I am really trying to cajole God into enriching me with some experience 

— what then?

Then everything becomes a distraction. 

All created things interfere with my quest for some special experience. 

I must shut them out, or they will tear me apart.

What is worst — I, myself am distraction. 

But, unhappiest of all — if my prayer is centered in myself, 

if it seeks only an enrichment of my own self, 

my prayer will be my greatest potential distraction.

Full of my own curiosity, 

I have eaten of the tree of Knowledge and 

torn myself away from myself and God.

I am left rich and alone and nothing can assuage my hunger: 

everything I touch turns into distraction.

~ Thomas Merton

from Thoughts In Solitude

sketch by the author

roguish smile of a joyful god

Every day of your life joy is waiting for you, 
hidden at the heart of the significant things which happen to you
 or secretly around the corner of quieter things. If your heart loves delight,
 you will always be able to discover the quiet joy that awaits
 to shine forth in many situations. 

Prayer should help us develop the habit of delight. 
We weight the notion of prayer with burdens of duty,
 holiness and the struggle for perfection. Prayer should have the freedom of delight.
 It should arise from and bring us to humour, laughter, and joy.
 Religion often suffers from a great amnesia; it constantly insists
 on the seriousness of God and forgets 
the magic of the divine glory. 

Prayer should be the wild dance of the heart, too.
 In the silence of our prayer we should be able to sense the roguish smile
 of a joyful god who, despite all the chaos and imperfection, 
ultimately shelters everything.

~ John O'Donohue

from Eternal Echoes