359° blind
"The way in which we view something defines for us what we're going to allow ourselves to see of it. A point of view is merely one degree out of the three hundred and sixty degrees of a circle; each point of view can see from that point only, and so is three hundred and fifty nine degrees blind. When we become fixated on our point of view, our interpretations and expectations blind us."
- Anzan Hoshin
Before Thinking
"Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves. It creates an explosion that for the moment frees us from handed down frames of reference, memory choked with old facts and information and undigested theories and techniques of other people's findings. Spontaneity is the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with a reality and see it, explore it and act accordingly. In this reality the bits and pieces of ourselves function as an organic whole. It is the time of discovery, of experiencing, of creative expression."
- Viola Spolin
"A fresh attitude starts to happen when we look to see that yesterday was yesterday, and now it is gone; today is today and now it is new. It is like that - every hour, every minute is changing. If we stop observing change, then we stop seeing everything as new."
- Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
"In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It is our capacity to relax with not knowing, not figuring everything out, with not being at all sure about who we are - or who anyone else is either."
- Pema Chodron
"In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by mid-life it is overgrown . . . But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves."
- Saul Bellow
"There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"Why would anyone put their shoulder against a mountain they can't possibly shift? Why not live in the valley instead and learn day-by-day who you are? Why not stay there and explore your potential and how you can best express it?"
- Hildegard of Bingen
"If I were a tree among trees, a cat among animals, this life would have a meaning, or rather this problem would not arise, for I should belong to this world. I should be this world to which I am now opposed by my whole consciousness and my whole insistence upon familiarity. This ridiculous reason is what sets me in opposition to all creation. I cannot cross it out with a stroke of a pen."
- Albert Camus
"How can I forget me when everything is designed to remember me to myself?"
- Laurence G. Boldt
Once Ma-tsu and Pai-chang were walking along and saw some wild ducks flying by.
"What is that?" the master asked.
"Wild ducks," Pai-chang said.
"Where have they gone?"
"They've flown away," Pai-chang said.
The master then twisted Pai-chang's nose, and when Pai-chang cried out in pain, Ma-tsu said, "When have they ever flown away?"
" . . . it may take you many years to find out that the stranger you talked to once for half an hour in the railroad station may have done more to point you to where your true homeland lies than your priest or your best friend or even your psychiatrist."
- Frederick Buechner
A man asked his wise old uncle - "Could it not be simply that we are alone and aimless, doomed to wander in an indifferent universe, with no hope of salvation, nor any prospect except misery, death and the empty reality of eternal nothing?"
The uncle replies - "And you wonder why you're not invited to more parties."
- Woody Allen
Getting Even
"Whenever someone asked the Zen master how he was, he would always answer, "I'm okay." Finally one of his students said, "Roshi, how can you always be okay?" Don't you ever have a bad day?" The Zen master answered, "Sure I do. On bad days, I'm okay. On good days, I'm also okay."
- Pema Chodron
"Each of us is aware of far more than we can ever express. Yet those who can persuade themselves to be guided thus in their pursuit of the totality of truth, find themselves rewarded not so much by a surrender of any significant part of the essential mystery, as by its transformation into something accessible as living wonder."
- Laurens van der Post
"There was a time when the loudest sound was the sound of the village chanting. We've gone from a world full of sound - bird song, wind in the trees, insects, people chanting - to a world filled by the noise of machines where we are silent. All science tells us that we are resonant. If it is a resonant world and we are resonant beings, singing and chanting are ways to communicate, to exchange ourselves with the world. And the voice is the one thing we no longer use."
- Jill Purce
It is not speech which we should want to know:
we should know the speaker.
It is not things seen which we should want to know:
we should know the seer.
It is not sounds which we should want to know:
we should know the hearer.
It is not mind which we should want to know:
we should know the thinker.
– Kaushitaki Upanishad 3:8
I sit on top of a boulder
the stream is icy cold
quiet joys hold a special
. . . charm
bare cliffs in the fog
. . . enchant
this is such a restful place
the sun goes down
. . and tree shadows sprawl
I watch the ground
. . of my mind
and a lotus comes out
. . . of the mud
- Han Shan
/Cold Mountain
Hidden on this mountain, many Buddhist monks
Chant sutras, meditate together;
Men on distant city walls gazing towards the peaks
See only white, enshrouding clouds.
- Wang Wei
"Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.
To be vital, awake, aware, in all areas of our lives, is the task that is never accomplished, but it remains the goal."
- Brother David Stendl-Rast
"To empty oneself is to become oneself;
to become oneself is thus to go along with the world;
to go along thus with the world of inevitables is to be free in it.
Therefore to empty oneself is to be free in the world."
- Kuang-ming Wu
"Go live, win and lose, smash your hands against hysterical constellations, your head against phases of the moon, and your heart against another heart. Find the leisure to contemplate the results. You will discover the human condition. Foolish mortals who say that they seek reality don’t know what they are saying. For them, the worldly, when they approach it, they tremble and feel weak, distressed, fearful, terrified and repelled. They reject the truth and turn somewhere else for it, an easier, a softer, lifeless one. Little do they realize that they have been through the door itself, and in error, stupefying ignorance, in that immensity, said nothing is here, and stepped back to dullness. They may be less eloquent and merely realize the words it is painful. I must stop it, and step back."
- John Brzostoski
The Lotus Is Born in Fire
"Oh isn't life a terrible thing, thank God."
- Dylan Thomas
"We live in the aretz, in the world, and yet in one way or another it is an essential faculty of the human being - a mysterious longing which Abraham Joshua Heschel identifies as the root of all our religious practice - to yearn for something more. We seek the shamayim, whether that shamayim is religious or spiritual or purely secular, romantic, materialistic, athletic, ideological, pharmacological, or in any other form. This is not only the occupation of the religionists. All sensitive women and men are engaged in it, whether we are trying to chase our dreams, or at least learn what they are; to seize the day; to pursue pleasure and have fun, if that brings lasting joy; or simply trying to have a warm life, surrounded by a family or other people whom you love. Anytime we are doing something other than killing time or losing our way, we are defining, and hopefully chasing, What Matters. We are valuing. From the surfer in search of the perfect wave to the guru in the desert, we are in a struggle with our own ultimate aretz - with the knowledge that, within a century or so, we will be no more. Our human existence is conditioned by this polarity, this constant wandering between what we are and what we want to be, what we know and what we dream. We live it every day."
- Jay Michaelson
Trying to Count the Stars
shamayim (sky, heaven, infinite) and aretz (land, world, finitude)
"Consider this: in our everyday state of consciousness, we regard our body to be extremely limited. What's more, we feel that this body is the major source of all our sufferings - the feelings of pain arise in the body, the fear of illnesses and death are intimately connected to the body, etc. On the other hand, we think bright, encouraging thoughts about our minds, and our imaginative capabilities. Whilst the body is weak, limited and prone to breaking down easily, the mind is sovereign, it is our sanctuary and can give us a glimpse of the victory over our humiliating conditions. Our conscious thoughts seemingly know no bounds - we can fantasize to our hearts content about ideal conditions, distant lands, nice, heartwarming events and circumstances. We can easily imagine pigs with wings - something that's impossible for nature itself to accomplish. What can possibly stop our imagination? And look, it's not only idle daydreaming - all the achievements that the science, technology, art and philosophy can boast of, all have their origin in our imagination.
Well, the experience of enlightenment changes all that. Strictly speaking, it turns things on their heads. Upon opening our mind's eye, we see that it is our conscious mind that is extremely limited, feeble, and prone to easily break down. Our body, which we have despised so much, turns out to be the wondrous limitless reality - we can go anywhere, climb any mountain and hill. Our body enables us to truly live."
- Alex Bunard
rather we are Reality itself illusorily conceived."
- Wei Wu Wei
Souvenir, Wisconsin River
Mindful of you by love, I think to send you
token of this enchantment that I see
when v-shaped sparkles dance on wind-rushed water
in the sun’s path. Insanities of glee
delight when light here, there and everywhere
shines, disappears, re-shines- a fantasy
no words could capture save in small wild fragments
of..................v
...v.................................v
v...................v..................v
...v.................................v
.....................v
- Jeremy Reed
"There once lived a great warrior. Though quite old, he still was able to defeat any challenger. His reputation extended far and wide throughout the land and many students gathered to study under him.
One day an infamous young warrior arrived at the village, determined to be the first man to defeat the great master. Along with his strength, he had an uncanny ability to spot and exploit any weakness in an opponent. He would wait for his opponent to make the first move, thus revealing a weakness, and then would strike with merciless force and lightning speed.
Much against the advice of his concerned students, the old master gladly accepted the young warrior's challenge. As the two squared off for battle, the young warrior began to hurl insults at the old master. He threw dirt and spit in his face. For hours he verbally assaulted him with every curse and insult known to man. But the old warrior merely stood there calmly. Finally, the young warrior exhausted himself. Knowing he was defeated, he left feeling ashamed.
Somewhat disappointed that he did not fight the insolent youth, the students gathered around the old master and questioned him. "How could you endure such indignity? How did you drive him away?"
"If someone comes to give you a gift and you do not receive it," the master replied, "to whom does the gift belong?"
"One time when the Master was washing his bowls, he saw two birds contending over a frog.
A monk, who also saw this, asked, "Why does it come to that?"
The Master replied, "It's only for your benefit."
- Dong-Shan
"To make things as easy as possible to understand, we can summarize the four boundless qualities in the single phrase a kind heart. Just train yourself to have a kind heart always and in all situations."
- Patrul Rinpoche
"What is a weekend man you ask? A weekend man is a person who has abandoned the present in favor of the past or the future. He is really more interested in what happened to him twenty years ago or in what is going to happen to him next week than he is in what is happening to him today. If the truth were known nothing much happens to most of us during the course of our daily passage. It has to be said. Unless we are test pilots or movie stars most of us are likely to wake up tomorrow to the same ordinary flatness of our lives. This is not really such a bad thing. It is probably better than fighting off a sabre-tooth tiger at the entrance to the cave. First off we must cast about for a diversion. A diversion is anything that removes us from the ordinary present. Sometimes we divert ourselves into our own pasts. This is more likely to happen as we grow older. I am only thirty, for instance, but in the course of an average day I sometimes shake my heads a dozen times to keep from sinking into my own past. Diverting oneself into the past would not be so bad if it didn't bring on the nostalgies. But, of course, it does, and a severe case of the nostalgies can often as not leave a person worse off than he was before.
It is also possible to divert oneself into the future: that is, look forward to something that is going to happen to you on Friday night or next July twenty-third. This is alright except that it never happens the way you imagine it will: in fact it's just as likely to turn into disappointment. And that can plunge a person into the worst kind of despair. The weekend man simply never learns to live with the thundering ironies. He is forever looking backwards and being afflicted by a painful sense of loss or he is looking forward and being continually disappointed. What to do? Well, you'll just have to work it out for yourself. I myself just drift along, hoping that the daily passage will deliver up a few painless diversions. Most of the time, however, I am quietly gritting my teeth and just holding on."
- Richard B. Wright
The Weekend Man
"The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other."
- Francis Bacon
The Establishment
They inhabit another continent.
all sheep, no wolves, a huddled mediocrity
that looks to the collective to shelter
dead impulses. All birds on that island
have stone wings and can never lift and know the sky's
blue spaces or the generosity
that lives in the creative. They are flat
like their grey buildings; equally as flawed
as stucco fissures mapped on a highrise.
Their dead books shuttle to the fire
of a crematorium's oven.
Their fraudulent public faces don't see
beauty or how originality
animates the image to poetry.
I sit, back to the wall in a basement.
I write and five purpletulips instruct
me love and the word are evident;
I, and my life as an outsider, free.
- Laura Riding
"Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball – I am nothing! I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God."
- Emerson
"When writing, I aim for tightness. I often joke that my ideal written piece would contain no words. In my fantasy, my editorial carving is so advanced as to yield a splendidly blank page. Needless to say, such revisionary persistence is absurd and pragmatically useless, yet I often yearn for it. Why? Of what value is a blank page?
For most of us, the realm of ineffability is safely tucked away, reserved for use by dreamers and psychotics. I propose a partial boycott of our "effable" hardware. Let's make way for blank pages. Or, better stated: L t s m k w y f r b l k p g s. Who knows what we'll see?"
- Eric Shapiro
Between A & B
"Why should we all use our creative power and write or paint or play music, or whatever it tells us to do?
Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money. Because the best way to know the Truth or Beauty is to try to express it. And what is the purpose of existence Here or Yonder but to discover truth and beauty and express it, share it with others?"
- Brenda Ueland
"If an ordinary person is silent, it may be a tactical manoeuvre. If a writer is silent, he is lying."
- Jaroslav Seifert
1984 Nobel Prize acceptance speech
When We Say Goodbye
It is not because we are going -
Though the sea may begin at the doorstep, though the highway
May already have come to rest in our front rooms . . .
It is because, beyond distance, or enterprise
And beyond the lies and surprises of the wide and various worlds,
Beyond the flower and the bird and the little boy with his large questions
We notice our shadows:
Going . . .
- slowly, but going,
In slightly different directions -
Their speeds increasing -
Growing shorter, shorter
As we enter the intolerable sunlight that never grows old or kind.
- Claude McKay
"Do we have Buddha nature, are we essentially holy and perfect and beyond all limitation? Of course we are. Then why are we such a mess spiritually, and why must we bear the indignity of embodiment, shitting, pissing, growing old and dying? We know better but we do it on purpose, Zhaozho says. Why do we do it? Because it's the only way we can express our gratitude for the immensity of what we are."
[Master Zhaozho, when asked, "Does the dog have Buddha Nature?", replied, "Mu."]
- Norman Fischer
Zhaozho's Dog
"This screen is empty of an independent self.
Empty, in this sense, means that the screen is full of everything, the entire cosmos.
The presence of this computer display screen
proves the presence of the whole universe."
- author unknown [based on a statement by Thich Nhat Hanh]
["This paper is empty of an independent self. Empty, in this sense, means that the paper is full of everything, the entire cosmos. The presence of this tiny sheet of paper proves the presence of the whole universe."]
"It is less what one is that should matter, than what one is not."
- Wei Wu Wei
"The sky looks very blue. Is that its real color, or is it because it is so far away and has no end?"
- Chuang Tzu
"Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, having a stomach-ache perfectly, doing anything, perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly? Perfectly is in the will; perfectly is in the activity. Perfectly means that the activity is harmonious in all its parts, and fully achieves its proposed end. Perfectly means that at each moment of the activity there is no egoism in it, or rather, that our ego works together with the attraction and repulsion of the Egoism of the nature within and without us. Our pain is not only our own pain; it is the pain of the universe. The joy of the universe is also our joy. Our failure or misjudgment is that of nature, which never hopes or despairs, but keeps on trying to the end."
- R. H. Blyth
Zen and Zen Classics
Advice From a River
Go With the Flow
Immerse yourself in Nature
Slow down and meander
Go around the obstacles
Be thoughtful of those downstream
Stay current
The beauty is in the journey.
"Watch the mind, watch the process of experience arising and ceasing . . .
With mindfulness you can see the real owner of things.
Do you think this is your world, your body?
. . . We only rent this house;
why not find out who really owns it?"
- Ajahn Chah
"Thousands of repetitions and out of one's true self perfection emerges."
- zen saying
"Perfection is a deep sea of wisdom; samsara is like a whirling chaos."
- Huang po
Searching For The Dharma
You've traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma.
So many long days in the archives, copying, copying.
The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage.
Here! I've picked you a bunch of wildflowers.
Their meaning is the same
but they're much easier to carry.
- Hsu Yun
"As soon as you conceive of the Buddha, you are forced to conceive of sentient beings, or of concepts and no-concepts, of vital and trivial ones, which will surely imprison you between those two iron mountains."
- Huang po
"What we face in penetrating the self is the paradox of not knowing what we presume to know so well. Once we discover that the self in itself is a monstrous deceit, that the self is something transcendent in disguise, we begin to feel the pressure that keeps us down to a mere self. We begin to realize that our normal consciousness is in a state of trance, that which is higher in us is usually suspended."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
everything
"I went out on the porch. Nothing. Silence. Vast silence of the woods full of fireflies. The stars. Down in the south the huge sign of the Scorpion. The red eye of Regulus. Just stars. Not a light from any house or farm. Only fireflies and stars and silence. A car racing by the road, then more silence. Nothing. Nothing.
When a car goes by you can feel the alien frenzy of it. Someone madly going somewhere for no reason. I am a complete prisoner under these stars. With nothing. Or perhaps with everything.
I sit on the porch and deliberately refuse to rationalize anything, to explain anything or to comment on anything, only on what is there. I am there. Fireflies, stars, darkness, the massive shadows of the woods, the vague dark valley. And nothing, nothing, nothing.
Is she thinking of me? Loving me? Is her heart calling to mine in the dark? I don't know. I can't honestly say that I know. I can't honestly say I know anything except that it is late, that I can't sleep, that there are fireflies all over the place, and that there is not the remotest possibility of making any poetic statement on this. You don't write poems about nothing.
And yet somehow this nothing seems to be everything. I look at the south sky, and for some ungodly reason, for which there is no reason, everything is complete. I think of going back to bed in peace without knowing why, a peace that cannot be justified by anything, by any reason, any proof, any argument, by any supposition. There are no suppositions left. Only fireflies.
. . . I want to tell you something, but I don't know how to begin to say it. I am afraid that if I start talking and writing, I will confuse everything. Nothing needs to be said."
- Thomas Merton
A Midsummer Diary for M
"That something exists outside ourselves and our preoccupations, so near, so readily available, is our greatest blessing."
- Thomas A. Clark
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