All this hurrying soon will be over.
Only when we slow down do we touch the holy.
Rainer Maria Rilke, In Praise of Mortality.
photo of Glendasan river in Wicklow by Joe King
Tag: Awareness
A motto for the new month
Awareness is your refuge:
Awareness of the changingness of feelings, of moods, of material change and emotional change:
Stay with that, because it’s a refuge that is indestructible.
It’s not something that changes. It’s a refuge you can trust in.
This refuge is not something that you create. It’s not a creation. It’s not an ideal.
It’s very practical and very simple, but easily overlooked or not noticed.
When you’re mindful, you’re beginning to notice:
It’s like this
Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence
Getting a glimpse in a moment
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
A famous Zen poem reads: “The old Pond. A frog jumps in. Plop” This is a wonderful description of bare attention. The poet, Basho, goes directly to the essence of his experience: the pond, frog, plop. We can say that in meditation we are developing “plop mind”. We are stripping away everything that is extraneous to our immediate experience and simply being present with what is happening. This is bare attention: direct, essential, non-interfering.
Joseph Goldstein, Bare Attention
photo Louis
A special place and time
The Place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you.
Hafiz
Life passing by
Wake up my heart! The world is passing by;
Life froths and flows by, free for the asking.
Don’t sleep in your body, oblivious,
As the caravan of life goes by your house.
Rumi
A poem for the start of autumn: to be a witness
I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.
I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars.
I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall’s gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow.
I do not know if the air remembers September or if the night remembers
the moon.
I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so.
Perhaps that is the reason for our births — to be the memory for
creation.
Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.
Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer:
“What can you tell me about September?”
Burton D. Carley, September Meditation
photo leslie seaton
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