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#2402 - Friday, February 24, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Am I Not Among the Early Risers (excerpt)
Am I not
among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?
Have I not
stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing
free to everyone, and everything?
Have I not
thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
What will
ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
What
countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
Here is an
amazement -- once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
Above the
modest house and the palace -- the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will recover and the child who will
not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the
next.
I bow down.
~ Mary
Oliver ~ (West
Wind)
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email to Panhala-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com music link (left button to play, right button to save)
Last November, I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Oliver give a reading here in Seattle. Unlike some poets, Mary Oliver makes few public appearances and I had never seen or heard her give a reading. Also, she has just lost her life partner not long before the tour began and I had no idea what to expect. For what it's worth, I came away knowing that she's the "real deal" when and about what she writes. The local public radio station recorded her talk and part of it is now available, if you're interested, at: http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=10055 The program begins (abruptly) with Mary Oliver reading "The Journey"....
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Journey.html
All Panhala poetry is posted by Joe Riley
Mashallah ...mercy, mercy
"The way we are
led by dreams has been extremely important
in my life. I have told the story elsewhere, several times,
how I met my teacher in a dream on May 2, 1977.
I'll tell it again:
In my dream I am sleeping on the bluff above the Tennessee
River five miles north of Chattanooga where I grew up. I
wake up inside the dream, though still asleep. A ball of
light rises off Williams Island and comes over me. It
clarifies from the inside out and reveals a man sitting
cross-legged with a white shawl over his head, which is
bowed. He lifts his head and opens his eyes. "I love
you,"
he says. "I love you too," I answer. The landscape, my
first deep love, the curve of that river and that island,
feels soaked with love, which is also just the ordinary
dew forming in the night. I feel the process of the dew
as a mixing of love with world-matter. That was the dream,
and the only credential I have for working with Rumi's poetry.
When I met the teacher in the dream, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen,
a year and half later,.... he told me to continue the
work on Rumi. "It has to be done."
Bawa died on December 8, 1986."
~ Coleman Barks in "Rumi: The Book of Love"
Mashallah
"There's someone swaying by your side,
lips that say Mashallah, Mashallah.
Wonderful. God inside attraction.
A spring no one knew of wells up
on the valley floor.
Lights inside a tent lovers move toward.
The refuse of Damascus gets turned over
in the sun. Be like that yourself.
Say mercy, mercy to the one who guides
your soul, who keeps time.
Move, make a mistake, look
up. Checkmate."
~ Rumi, transliterated by Coleman Barks - "Rumi: The Book of
Love"
posted by Mazie Lane to Allspirit
A Samurai Warrior's Creed
I have no parents--I
make the heavens and earth my parents.
I have no home--I make awareness my home.
I have no life or death--I make the tides of breathing my life
and death.
I have no divine power--I make honesty my divine power.
I have no means--I make understanding my means.
I have no magic secrets--I make character my magic secret.
I have no body--I make endurance my body.
I have no eyes--I make the flash of lightening my eyes.
I have no ears--I make sensibility my ears.
I have no limbs--I make promptness my limbs.
I have no strategy--I make "unshadowed by thought" my
strategy.
I have no designs--I make "seizing opportunity by the
forelock" my design.
I have no miracles--I make right-action my miracles.
I have no principles--I make adaptability to all circumstances my
principles.
I have no tactics--I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.
I have no talents--I make ready wit my talent.
I have no friends--I make my mind my friend.
I have no enemy--I make carelessness my enemy.
I have no armor--I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.
I have no castle--I make immovable-mind my castle.
I have no sword--I make absence of self my sword.
~Anonymous Samurai, fourteenth century
Found in The Book of Runes. Ralph H. Blum, St. Martin's Press,
NY,
1993
posted by Viorica Weissman to The Power of
Silence
Stumped
If a stump could talk would he tell of all the branches, leaves and birds of summers long ago?
Oh, can you see? He wants to, he wants to!
sam poem and photo by Sam Pasiencier http://home.hccnet.nl/sam.pas/stump.jpg
Spirit of Tibet
http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/boeddhistischeomroep/spirit.rm
A film by the French monk and
internationally renowned photographer Matthieu Ricard, author of
the book 'The Monk and the Philosopher'. The film is about his
Tibetan teacher, H.H. Kyabjé Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He was the
Dzogchen teacher of the Dalai Lama and the teacher of many of the
present generation of Tibetan teachers; both literally and
figuratively a giant. Matthieu Ricard has always served as his
secretary, and is also the official translator of HH the Dalai
Lama. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche visited the Western world several
times and has many Western students. Those who have met him,
acknowledge him as a fully realized person. The film contains
rare and authentic footage from the fifties and the sixties of
Buddhist dances and rituals.
posted by Ben Hassine to Dzogchen Practice
