Who sees all beings in his own Self
and his own Self in all beings,
loses all fear.
Isha Upanishad
Category: Be fully present
What Springtime teaches us
Heaven and Earth give themselves.
Air, water, plants, animals, and humans give themselves to each other.
It is in this giving-themselves-to-each-other that we actually live.
Whether you appreciate it or not, it is true.
Kodo Sawaki, 1880 – 1965, Japanese Sōtō Zen teacher
The light is always there
A beautiful idea, similar to the Eastern understanding of natural goodness, or original mind:
Our hands full or not:
The same abundance.
Our eyes open or shut:
The same light.
Yves Jean Bonnefoy, French poet and art historian, 1923 – 2016
with, as before, thanks to david kanigan, Live and Learn blog
photo carrotmadman6
Sunday Quote: Springtime: Just paying attention
Nothing you ever understand
will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.
Mary Oliver, Terns
Don’t make life more complicated than it is
I grew up in a post-Depression household. My parents went off to work, so my grandmother did a great deal of the mothering, and I remember her bathing and washing and dressing me and making braids and preparing the kinds of foods that I liked. The only thing that she was not moved to respond to was the coming and going of childhood bouts of “I’m not happy.” I’d say, “But I’m not happy.” And she’d say, “Where is it written that you’re supposed to be happy all the time?” And I actually think it was the beginning of my spiritual practice — that life is difficult. Then 40 years later, I learned that the Buddhists said the same thing, that life is inevitably challenging, and how are we going to do it in a way that’s wise and doesn’t complicate it more than it is just by itself?
Sylvia Boorstein
photo gaijin biker
You will never be complete
Inside the huge Romanesque church the tourists jostled in the half darkness.
Vault gaped behind vault, no complete view.
An angel with no face embraced me
and whispered through my whole body:
“Don’t be ashamed of being human, be proud!
Inside you vault opens behind vault endlessly.
You will never be complete, that’s how it’s meant to be.“
Blind with tears
I was pushed out on the sun-seething piazza
together with Mr and Mrs Jones, Mr Tanaka, and Signora Sabatini,
and inside them all vault opened behind vault endlessly.
Tomas Transtromer, Romanesque Arches
photo valdavia
