listen

.

Listen: this world is the lunatic’s sphere,
Don’t always agree it’s real!

Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door
My address is somewhere else.


–Hafiz

.

There is only life. There is nobody who lives a life. –Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.


–Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

look

.

This little finger covers the eye and prevents the whole world from being seen.

In the same way this small mind covers the whole universe and prevents Reality from being seen.


–Ramana Maharshi

.

confession

.

Sometimes I patrol the perimeter of life,
checking for holes where reality might leak in.

—Sayings of Te Toh

.

you know ...

.

Staying very still in the darkness, I became less and less convinced of the fact that I actually existed.

–Haruki Murakami

.

note to self

.

You create what you resist.


—Luis Alvarez
Nobel Prize/Physics

.

if you want

.

If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked.

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
The Master, by residing in the Tao, sets an example for all beings.


–Lao Tzu

.

the dream is a dream

.

See the dream as dream.

There is no need of a way out of the dream!
Can you see that a way out is also a part of the dream?

All you have to do is see the dream as dream.
The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory.

Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out.

The problem is not the dream.
Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another.

Love all, or none of it, without complaint.

When you have seen the dream as a dream,
you have done all that needs be done.


–Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

it is a body

.

The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass.

It is a body—has a spirit—is organic—and fluid to the influence of its spirit—and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.


—Henry David Thoreau

.

observation

.

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed,
will set off a revolution.


—Paul Cezanne

.

greening

.

Therefore we ought not to say ‘the tree (became) green’ or ‘the tree (is) now green’ (both of which imply a change in the tree’s ‘essence’), but rather ‘the tree greens’. By using the infinitive form of ‘to green’, we make a dynamic attribution of the predicate, an incorporeality distinct from both the tree and green-ness which captures nonetheless the dynamism of the event’s actualisation. The event is not a disruption of some continuous state, but rather the state is constituted by events ‘underlying’ it that, when actualised, mark every moment of the state as a transformation.

—Cliff Stagoll
The Deleuze Dictionary

.

pure light

.

When you look at anything, it is the ultimate you see, but you imagine that you see a cloud or a tree.

Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realise that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear.

Even the sense of ‘I am’ is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The ‘I’ is there even without the ‘am’. So is the pure light there whether you say ‘I’ or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience — that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.


–Ramana Maharshi

.
Paul Slyer photo
.

look

.

Try another way of looking.

Try you looking and the whole universe seeing.


—Rumi

.

for the children

.

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down. 

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it. 

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children: 

stay together
learn the flowers
go light 


–Gary Snyder  

.

note to self

.

It is not the work that hinders (peace) but the idea that it is you who are doing it.

—Sri Ramana Maharshi

.

perspective

.
ashramof1
.

Ars Poetica, excerpt

.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,

for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.


–Czesław Miłosz

.

so below

.

That which is above is like that which is below

and that which is below is like that which is above,

to achieve the wonders of the one thing.


–Hermes Trismegistus

.

i am that

.

Watching my hand; He is moving it.

Hearing my voice; He is speaking...

Walking from room to room --

No one here but Him.


–Rumi

Andrew Harvey version

.

alchemy

.

I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe.

We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.


—Paulo Coelho
from The Alchemist

.

streaming

.

When the path ignites a soul,
there's no remaining in place.

The foot touches ground,
but not for long.

The way where love tells its secret
stays always in motion,
and there is no you there, and no reason.

The rider urges his horse to gallop,
and so doing, throws himself
under the flying hooves.

In love-unity there's no old or new.
Everything is nothing.
God alone is.

For lovers the phenomena-veil is very transparent,
and the delicate tracings on it cannot
be explained with language.

Clouds burn off as the sun rises,
and the love-world floods with light.

But cloud-water can be obscuring,
as well as useful.

There is an affection that covers the glory,
rather than dissolving into it.

It's a subtle difference,
like the change in Persian
from the word "friendship"
to the word "work."

That happens with just a dot
above or below the third letter.

There is a seeing of the beauty
of union that doesn't actively work
for the inner conversation.

Your hand and feet must move,
as a stream streams, working
as its Self, to get to the ocean.
Then there's no more mention
of the search.

Being famous, or being a disgrace,
who's ahead or behind, these considerations
are rocks and clogged places
that slow you. Be as naked as a wheat grain
out of its husk and sleek as Adam.

Don't ask for anything other
than the presence.

Don't speak of a "you"
apart from That.

A full container cannot be more full.
Be whole, and nothing.


–Hakim Sanai (1044? - 1150?)
Coleman Barks version

.

three attributes

.

The sign of God’s love is to bestow three attributes on His lover:

A generosity like that of the sea,

a kindness like that of the sun, and,

a humility like that of the earth.


–Bayazid

.

It Is I Who Must Begin

.

It is I who must begin.
Once I begin, once I try --
here and now,
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
-- to live in harmony
with the "voice of Being," as I
understand it within myself
-- as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.

Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.


–Vaclav Havel

.

 

 

starting wth little things

.

Start with little things.

Love the earth like a mole,
fur-near. Nearsighted,
hold close the clods,
their fine-print headlines.
Pat them with soft hands --

Like spades, but pink and loving; they
break rock, nudge giants aside,
affable plow.

Fields are to touch;
each day nuzzle your way.

Tomorrow the world.


–William Stafford
The Way It Is

.

we have a beautiful Mother

.

We have a beautiful
Mother
Her hills
Are buffaloes
Her buffaloes
Hills.

We have a beautiful

Mother

Her oceans

Are wombs

Her wombs

Oceans.

We have a beautiful
Mother
Her teeth
The white stones
At the edge
Of the water
The summer
Grasses
Her plentiful
Hair.

We have a beautiful
Mother
Her green lap
Immense
Her brown embrace
Eternal
Her blue body
Everything we know.


–Alice Walker

.

medicine

.

When the wind blows

that is my medicine

When it rains
that is my medicine

When it hails
that is my medicine

When it becomes clear after a storm
that is my medicine


–Holy Woman Poem

.

Sorrow Arrow, excerpt

 .

You sit in your body, quietly making blood

Wild blood

Bird of the world


–Emily Kendal Frey

.

listen

.

The horse's mind

Blends
 
So swiftly

Into the hay's mind.


–Fazil Husnu Daglarca
Talat Sait Halman translation

.

earthspeak

 

.

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

–Rabindranath Tagore

.

kindred

.

... down deep, at the molecular heart of life,
we’re essentially identical to trees.

–Carl Sagan

.

Wholeness and the Implicit Order

.

[O]ne can no longer maintain the division between the observer and the observed (which is implicit in the atomistic view that regards each of these as separate aggregates of atoms). Rather, both observer and observed are merging and interpenetrating aspects of one whole reality, which is indivisible and unanalysable.

 —David Bohm

.

keeping things whole

.

In a field
I am the absence
of field.

This is
always the case.

Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.

I move
to keep things whole.


–Mark Strand

.

arrivals

.

The great corn arrives.

The child-rain arrives.

In a way of beauty arrives.

Grasshopper arrives.

From the west arrives.

Vegetation arrives.

Pollen arrives.

In a way of beauty arrives.


–Diné

.