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#1771 - Sunday, April 18, 2004 - Editor: Gloria
Not
yet having become a Buddha,
The ancient pine-tree
Idly dreaming.
--Issa (1763-1827)
"On
Climbing the Sierra Mountains Again"
Range after range of mountains
Year after year after year.
I am still in love.
--Gary Snyder
Morning Zen
To
live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
-Joseph Chilton Pearce
The
problem with people who have no vices is that
generally you can be pretty sure they're going to
have some pretty annoying virtues.
- Elizabeth Taylor
image: http://www.screensavershot.com/art/angels.jpg
Angels
Who are without mercy,
Who confide in trumpet flowers,
Who carry loose change in their pockets,
Who dress in black velvet,
Who wince and fidget like bats,
Who balance their haloes on hatracks,
Who watch reruns of famine,
Who powder their noses with pollen,
Who laugh and unleash earthquakes,
Who sidle in and out of our dreams
Like magicians, like childhood friends,
Who practice their smiles like pirates,
Who exercise by walking to Zion,
Who live on the edge of doubt,
Who cause vertigo but ease migraines,
Who weep milky tears when troubled,
Whose night sweats engender the plague,
Who pinion their arms to chandeliers,
Who speak in riddles and slant rhymes,
Who love the weak and foolhardy,
Who lust for unripe persimmons,
Who scavenge the fields for lost souls,
Who hover near lighthouses,
Who pray at railroad crossings,
Who supervise the study of rainbows,
Who cannot blush but try,
Who curl their hair with corkscrews,
Who honeymoon with Orion,
Who are not wise but pure,
Who behave with impious propriety,
Who hourly scour our faces with hope,
Whose own faces glow like radium,
Whom we've created in our own form,
Who are without mercy, seek and yearn
To return us like fossilized roses
To the wholeness of our original bloom.
Maurya
Simon,
from Ghost Orchid. © Red Hen Press.
Krishnamurti's Notebook
August 12th 1961, Gstaad
Yesterday, walking up the valley, the mountains covered with clouds and the stream seemingly more noisy than ever, there was a sense of astonishing beauty, not that the meadows and hills and the dark pines had changed. Only the light was different, more soft, with a clarity that seemed to penetrate everything, leaving no shadow. As the road climbed, we were able to look down on a farm, with green pasture land around it. It was a green meadow, a rich green that is seen nowhere, but that little farmhouse and that green pasture contained all the earth and all mankind. There was an absolute finality about it; it was the finality of beauty that is not tortured by thought and feeling.
The beauty of a picture, a song, a building is put together by man, to be compared, to be criticized, to be added up but this beauty was not the handwork of man. All the handwork of man must be denied with a finality before this beauty can be. For it needs total innocence, total austerity; not the innocence that thought had contrived nor the austerity of sacrifice. Only when the brain is free of time, and its responses; utterly still, is there that austere innocency.
Woke up long before dawn when the air is very still and the earth waiting for the sun. Woke up with a clarity that was peculiar and an urgency that demanded full attention. The body was completely motionless, an immobility that was without strain, without tension. And inside the head a peculiar phenomenon was going on. A great wide river was flowing with the pressure of immense weight of water, flowing between high, polished granite rock. On each side of this great wide river was polished, sparkling granite, on which nothing grew, not even a blade of grass; there was nothing but sheer polished rock, soaring up beyond measurable eyesight. The river was making its way, silently, without a whisper, indifferent, majestic. It was actually taking place, it wasn't a dream, a vision nor a symbol to be interpreted. It was there taking place, beyond any doubt; it was not a thing of imagination. No thought could possibly invent it; it was too immense and real for thought to formulate it.
The immobility of the body and this great flowing river between the polished granite walls of the brain, went on for an hour and a half by the watch. Through the open window the eyes could see the coming dawn. There was no mistaking the reality of what was taking place. For an hour and a half the whole being was attentive, without effort, without wandering off. And all of a sudden it stopped and the day began.
This
morning, that benediction filled the room. It was raining hard
but there
would be blue sky later.
image: http://www.peacegallery.wyenet.co.uk/bluelight.gif
One
glance at the morning star,
And the snow got even whiter.
The look in his eye
Chills hair and bones.
If earth itself hadn’t
Experienced this instant,
Old Shakyamuni never would have happened.
- Daito (1282-1334)
After
late spring rain
The falling petals swirl
Weightlessly; celestial scent
Covers my patched robe
A simple vacant mind
Has no place to go
Resting on the peak
I watch the clouds return.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)
Against
the gently flowing spring morning
The arrogant rattle of a passing coach
Peach blossoms beckon from the distant village
Willow branches caress the shoulder of the pond
As bream and carp flash their golden scales
And mated ducks link embroidered wings
The poet stares about; this way, then that
Caught in a web beyond all speaking.
- Shih-shu (17th century-early 18th)
Just by
listening with your eyes
you can fold back on yourself and
merge into that primal
stream of awareness
like a river is swallowed by the
immensity of the ocean.
Only then will you know
the point to live from.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration
From 'Peace is Every Step'
Thich
Nhat Hanh
Look into Your Hand
I have a friend who is an artist. Before he left Vietnam forty
years ago,
his mother held his hand and told him, "Whenever you miss
me, look
into your hand, and you will see me immediately." How
penetrating these
simple, sincere words!
Over the years, my friend looked into his hand many times.
The presence of his mother is not just genetic. Her spirit, her
hopes, and her
life are also in him. When he looks into his hand, he can see
thousands of
generations before him and thousands of generations after him. He
can see
that he exists not only in the evolutionary tree branching along
the axis of
time, but also in the network of interdependent relations. He
told me that
he never feels lonely.
When my niece came to visit me last summer, I offered her
"Look into
Your Hand" as a subject for her meditation. I told her that
every pebble,
every leaf, and every butterfly are present in her hand.
gill
Allspirit Website:
http://www.allspirit.co.uk
Viorica Weissman ~ MillionPaths
|
There have been many who have influenced me in my lifelong search for the truth, but none more so than Paul Brunton. So many times his thoughts have echoed mine, so many times I have inwardly cried out "yes, yes!" when his words have struck home. I never met him, but felt close to him, having visited the same places, met the same kind of people he met, and experienced similar happenings, but his search was the more successful because he had the courage and determination to venture into the unknown, tear down curtains of superstition, topple idols and scatter sacred cows. That may make him appear a giant among men. On the contrary, PB as he like to be called, was small and dapper, spoke softly and slowly, was gentle in this approach and lived quietly and abstemiously. Yet in his spiritual journeying this little man visited the far corners of the world, living with princes, mystics and holy men, staying in palaces and mud huts, and emerging something of a guru himself, with a message of incredible importance and hope for those who cared to read it. In this short appreciation I hope to summarize some of his findings and explain his philosophy. Strangely, he wasn't aware of having any mission in life other than the hope of making people aware of the value of their own souls. He had no desire to inflict his beliefs on others. He was no missionary, and didn't seek to convert or compel. His main resolve was to be independent of allegiances and authorities, and to rely on his own observations and findings so that he could set down the simple truths of things which had become hidden or distorted over the years. Others would pick them up or discard them as they thought fit. All he hoped was that people would find within themselves what he had found. ......... the rest of the article is here: http://paulbrunton.org/articles/behague.html |
WILL ROGER'S WORDS OF WISDOM
There
are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The
few
who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on
the electric
fence and find out for themselves.
There are 2 theories to arguing with a woman...neither works.
The
quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it
back in
your pocket.
Good
judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes
from
bad judgment.
When you
are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think
of
Algebra.
Some
people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want
people
to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long
way and some of
the roads weren't paved.
The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
After
eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he
started
roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot
him. The
moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth
shut.
The Womanly Song
of God
I am the
woman dancing the wold alive:
birds on my wrists
sun-feathers in my hair
I leap through hoops of atoms;
under my steps
plants burst into bloom
birches tremble in their silver.
Can you not see the roundness of me:
curve of the earth
maternal arms of the sea
encircling you wetly as you swim?
I am the birthing woman
kneeling by the river
heaving, pushing forth a sacred body
not mud, not stone: flesh and blood.
Round, round the wind
spinning itself wild
drawing great circles of music
across the sky.
Round the gourd full of seed
round the moon in its ripeness
round the door through which I come
stooping into your house.
I am a God of a thousand names:
why cannot one of them be
Woman Singing?
image: http://www.elemental-art.freeola.com/stonewomen.html
