Friday…a little more space appears…we can perhaps notice the beauty all around us, in the little things, new colours, some time for ourselves:
I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do.
The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me; the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel,
the unutterable muddiness of mud…
GK Chesterton
Mindful eating at its best, the poet fully taken by the eating of a peach. It can be the same for us today if we give any moment our full awareness:
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
extract, Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms
South Korean Screen painting of the Sun, Moon and Peach Trees
Lessons learnt from the week that has passed. Two different personalities using words in different ways: one path ascends, the other descends.
This was reinforced in a conversation with a close friend yesterday: The Western mind is performance driven, with value being given to the highest achiever. This might be good for external advancement and achievement, but will it last in terms of wisdom and inner peace?
The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again, I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Leonard Cohen, Anthem, died Friday November 11th
photo of centuries old rock in Glendalough
All of the wisdom traditions speak of the limitations of the interpretations or labels which we use to guide us through the day, or even through life. We form judgements about events and get strongly attached to those views, when we actually have no way of really knowing how things will turn out in the long run. Oftentimes, all we succeed in doing is raising our own anxiety. What we seek is that in each moment we have a direct experience of our life. The deepest realities about life, love and beauty cannot be put into words.
The true seeing is when there is no seeing
Heze Shenshsui, Chinese Zen monk, 684 – 758
The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao Tzu’s words ” Those who know do not say. Those who say do not know” When the Master entered they asked him what the words meant. The Master answered “Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose”. All of them knew.
Then he said “Put it into words” All of them were silent.
Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
photo mike plante
The only true antidote to always wanting more, as this 8th Century reminds us, is to be aware of, and rooted in, our inherent completeness, an awareness which will contradict the arising feeling of never being satisfied.
There is a solitary brightness without fixed shape or form.
It knows how to listen to the teachings,
it knows how to understand the teachings,
it knows how to teach.
That solitary brightness is you.
Linji Yìxuán, Chinese Zen Buddhist monk, died 866
I had one or two conversations this week which led me to reflect on how to live life where we find ourselves, when there are so many places elsewhere that seem more attractive, more lively, and have more to offer. Sometimes the place where we are can seem so small and limiting. Then I came across these thoughts from the always stimulating Parker Palmer and he sums up what I was thinking, and says them much better than I could ever do. So I simply offer them here for reflection:
I love this poem, and it needs little commentary from me.
Behind it lies a question many of us ask ourselves from time to time: Given my small, ordinary, un-famous, and fleeting life, what can I do that’s of true worth and value? Then it offers an answer that I find simple, real, moving, and doable.
I re-read this poem occasionally and ask myself, “Using everything I have — including my own ‘costly gifts of hunger, choice and pain’ — what can I do today to keep raising the ‘modest shrine to meaning’ I’d like to create with my life?”. Maybe it’s planting a tree, maybe it’s a random act of kindness to a stranger, maybe it’s offering comfort to someone who’s hurting, maybe it’s writing a thank-you letter to a mentor who saw your potential and drew it out…
There’s always something meaningful I can do to honor the gift of life in myself, others, and the world around us. Just do it!
Leonard Nathan, So
So…
you aren’t Tolstoy or St. Francis
or even a well-known singer
of popular songs and will never read Greek
or speak French fluently,
will never see something no one else
has seen before through a lens
or with the naked eye.
You’ve been given just the one life
in this world that matters
and upon which every other life
somehow depends as long as you live,
and also given the costly gifts of hunger,
choice, and pain with which to raise
a modest shrine to meaning.
Parker Palmer, Your Life is a Shrine to Meaning
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