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#2083 - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - Editor: Gloria
Star Without a Name
"When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.
Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.
So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.
That's how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights."
~Rumi
posted by Anipachen to Daily Dharma
Problems
We are continually faced with a series of great
opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
John W. Gardner
If you cannot solve it, it is not a problem it is
reality.
Barbara Coloroso
You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen
enough movies all of life's riddles are answered in the
movies.
Steve Martin
"I have a horror of people who speak about the beautiful.
What is the beautiful? One must speak of problems in
painting!"
Picasso
"A collective problem, if not recognized as such, always
appears as a personal problem."
Carl Gustav Jung
Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems. A
playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge
your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new
experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock
absorber for the bumpy road ahead.
Bill Watterson
posted on AlphaWorld
This is the beginning of
chapter 10: Meditation and concentration - taken from BE AS
YOU ARE - THE TEACHINGS OF SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI - edited by David
Godman
-------------------------------------------
The best meditation is that which continues in all the three
states. It must be so intense that it does not give room even to
the thought `I am meditating'.
Having made the liking to see through the deceitful senses
subside, and having thereby ended the objective knowing of the
mind, the jumping ego, to know the lightless light and the
soundless sound in the Heart is the true power of yoga
[yoga-shakti].
Posted by Viorica Weissman to
MillionPaths
Ikkyu --Crow With No
Mouth
a well nobody dug filled with no water
ripples and a shapeless weightless man drinks
oh green green willow wonderfully red flower
but I know the colors are not there
my gray cat jumped up just as I lifted this spoon
we're born we die
if there's nowhere to rest at the end
how can I get lost along the way?
that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets
I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind
I won't die I won't go away I'll always be here
no good asking me I won't speak
only a kind deadly sincere man
can show you the way here in the other world
melons eggplants rice rivers the sky
I offer them to you on this holiday
oh yes things exist like the echo when you yell at the foot of a
huge mountain
hear the cruel no-answer until blood drips down
beat your head against the wall of it
the mind is exactly this tree that grass
without thought or feeling both disappear
not two not one either
and the unpainted breeze in the ink painting feels cool
go down on your silly knees pray
for what? tomorrow is yesterday
I found my sparrow Sonrin dead one morning
and buried him just as gently as I would my own daughter
I hate it I know it's nothing but I
suck out the world's sweet juicy plum
why is it all so beautiful this fake dream
this craziness why?
it's logical: if you are not going anywhere
any road is the right one
know nothing I know nothing nobody does can you face me
and know nothing know
stare at it until your eyes drop out
this desk this wall this unreal page
only one koan matters
you
you stand inside me naked infinite love
the dawn bell rips my dreaming heart
we're lost where the mind can't find us
utterly lost
Ikkyu this body isn't yours I say to myself
wherever I am I'm there
ten fussy days running this temple all red tape
look me up if you want to in the bar whorehouse fish market
nature's a killer I won't sing to it
I hold my breath and listen to the dead singing under the grass
suddenly nothing but grief
so I put on my father's old ripped raincoat
when I was forty-seven everybody came to see me
so I walked out forever
my monk friend has a weird endearing habit
he weaves sandals and leaves them secretly by the roadside
a crazy lecher shuttling back and forth between whorehouse and
bar
this past master paints south north east west with his cock
no nothing only those wintry crows
bright black in the sun
peace isn't luck for six years stand facing a silent wall
until the you of your face melts like a candle
don't hesitate get laid that's wisdom
sitting around chanting what crap
life's like climbing knife-tree hills with swords sticking up
day and night something stabs you
we live in a cage of light an incredible cage
animals animals without end
sick of it whatever it's called sick of the names
I dedicate every pore to what's here
inside the koan clear mind
gashes the great darkness
ten years of whorehouse joy I'm alone now in the mountains
the pines are like a jail the wind scratches my skin
the wise know nothing at all
well maybe one song
men are like cows horses fuck poetry
look at your hand read it
I woke from a dream of death to day's amazing
death grass death rice death chairs death death asleep or
awake
no words sitting alone night in my hut eyes closed hands open
wisps of an unknown face
my death? who was it anyway always where he was never
no not once ever seeing himself an eyeball speaks
~ Ikkyu, from "Crow With No Mouth," translated by
Stephen Berg
posted by Mazie Lane on unsaymyself