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Your preciousness lies in your essence; it cannot be lost by anything that happens.
~ Chuang Tzu
posted by Shira Lee on Facebook
   

"Who makes these changes? I shoot an arrow right. It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others and fall in.
I should be suspicious of what I want."   ~ Rumi  

"Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it."

~ Rumi
posted by Mazie Lane to Facebook  

Happiness for No Reason  

My teacher, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, uses an image I like: "happiness for no
reason." When I think of that I think of being at home in one's body and
mind, in life as it is. That feeling of belonging is quieter than a lot of the
flash we try to experience, but it is ours, not someone else's to give us or to
take away. It is steadfast and supportive, unbroken when conditions change.
It can flourish in the face of obstacles, it can be there for us when
everything else seems to fail, and it reminds us that each moment of life,
delightful or painful, is precious.  

—Sharon Salzberg  

"Conceptions of Happiness"  

It has been clear
Shining like silver
Though the moonlight penetrates it
And the wind ruffles it
No trace of either remains
Today I would not dare
To expound the secret
Of the stream bed
But I can tell you
That the blue dragon
Is coiled there
~ Muso (1275-1351)  

posted by Kia Pierce to Facebook  

Sabbaths 1985, V  

How long does it take to make the woods?
As long as it takes to make the world.
The woods is present as the world is, the presence
of all its past and of all its time to come.
It is always finished, it is always being made, the act
of its making forever greater than the act of its destruction.
It is a part of eternity for its end and beginning
belong to the end and beginning of all things,
the beginning lost in the end, the end in the beginning.  
What is the way to the woods, how do you go there?
By climbing up through the six days’ field,
kept in all the body’s years, the body’s
sorrow, weariness, and joy. By passing through
the narrow gate on the far side of that field
where the pasture grass of the body’s life gives way
to the high, original standing of the trees.
By coming into the shadow, the shadow
of the grace of the strait way’s ending,
the shadow of the mercy of light.  

Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days’ world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf.  

~ Wendell Berry ~
  (A Timbered Choir)   Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Sabbaths_1985_V.html

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