We all have an deep seated drive to seek happiness somewhere else, with special conditions
Reaching the mystery is nothing other than breaking through
and grabbing an ordinary person’s life.
Zen saying
Sunday Quote: Reaching the mystery
Tag: Awareness
Stretch upwards
Saw some Giant Redwood trees walking in the grounds of Emo Court last weekend. They are quite young compared to the ones in California – only 170 years – being planted in 1853, but still an impressive size
Some of these trees have been here since Jesus walked on water
Some of these trees have been here
since Vikings drove their boats
onto the shores of Newfoundland…
Some of these trees have survived lightning strikes and forest fires…..
They have grown beyond
their trauma and focus now
on the daily climb, the adding-on
of needle and bark, on nature’s drive
to rise above and see beyond
until the day when death will fell them
and the earth will add them to its riches.
We can be like these trees, pull on the layers of living like fine
new garments, house the needy
in the caverns of our grief, grow
beyond the stories of our scars
stretch our branches toward the bristling stars.
Tamara Madison, American poet, Sequoia Sempervirens [extract], from the A Year of Being Here blog
What matters
All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are
and who you are is where you will be
when death takes you across the river.
John Squadra, 1932 – American artist and poet
This month: Let life take you by the hand
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.
He says everyone of us is a child,
everyone of us is ancient,
everyone of us has a body.
He says everyone of us is frightened.
He says everyone of us has to find
a way to live with fear..…
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love...
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
Roger Keyes, 1942-2020 American professor of East Asian studies, art historian and poet, Hokusai says [extracts]
Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese artist, best known as author of the woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Free from labels
Mind can only create the qualities of good and bad by comparing. Remove the comparison, and there go the qualities. What remains is the pure unknown: ungraspable object, ungraspable subject, and the clear light of awareness streaming through.
The pivot of the Tao is the mind free of its thoughts. It doesn’t believe that this is a this or that that is a that. Let Yes and No sprint around the circumference toward a finish line that doesn’t exist. How can they stop trying to win the argument of life until you stop?
Stephen Mitchell, The Second Book of the Tao
Sunday Quote: Be your own island
In some fundamental way, happiness is found within, not in external circumstances, and we cannot give responsibility for it over to another person
So Ānanda, be your own island,
your own refuge,
with no other refuge
The Buddha’s Last Teaching, recorded in the Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta (sutra)
Mindfulbalance 
