Sunday Quote: Veiled

Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.

Haruki Murakami

Returning

After the cold and the storms, bright Spring-like days in Ireland for the weekend.

And if you missed a day, there was always the next,
and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,
the hills weren’t going anywhere,
the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,
the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit
.

Louise Gluck, Sunrise [extract]

Our journey

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.

Wendell Berry.

Our true home

Five hundred of Rumi’s odes conclude with khamush, silence.

Rumi is less interested in language, more attuned to the sources of it.….Rumi has a whole theory of language based on the reed flute (ney). Beneath everything we say, and within each note of the reed flute, lies a nostalgia for the reed bed. Language and music are possible only because we’re empty, hollow, and separated from the source. All language is a longing for home.

Colman Barks, On Silence

Attention

It is hard to believe that the practice can be reduced to something so simple, paying direct attention to the present moment – to this breath, this person, this walk, to this washing of the dishes. We imagine it should be something grander. It may be simple; however, it is not easy

One day a man asked Zen master Ikkyu, “Master, will you please write for me some pointers to the highest wisdom?”

Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word: “Attention.”

Is that all?” asked the man. “Will you not add something more ?”

Ikkyu then wrote : “Attention. Attention. Attention.”

Practice eternity

Use your own light

and return to the source of light.

This is called practicing eternity.

Lao Tzu