We did not come to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves like the trees,
The trees that are broken
And start again, drawing up on great roots;
Like mad poets captured by the Moors,
Men who live out
A second life.
Robert Bly, A Home in the Dark Grass
Awareness is not the same as thought.
It lies beyond thinking, although it makes no use of thinking, honoring its value and its power.
Awareness is more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see and know our thought as thought rather than getting caught up in them as reality.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Wherever You go, There you are
photo Wagner Machado Carlos Lemes
The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no “meaning,” they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share.
Peter Matthiessen, the Snow Leopard
We think that accomplishing things will complete us,
when it is experiencing life that will.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Photo from the beautiful site http://www.judesphotography.wordpress.com
The sun shines day after day without fail, yet if clouds appear to make the sky overcast, it can’t be seen. It still comes up in the east every morning and goes down in the west. The only difference is that you can’t see it because it’s hidden behind the clouds. The sun is your Original Mind, the clouds are your illusions. You are unaware of your Original Minds because they’re covered by illusions and can’t be seen. But you never lose them, not even when you go to sleep. The unborn Original Mind that your mothers have given you is thus always there, wonderfully clear and bright and illuminating.
Bankei
With no mind, flowers invite the butterfly;
With no mind, the butterfly visits the flowers.
Yet when flowers bloom, the butterfly comes;
When the butterfly comes, the flowers bloom.
I don’t know others, Others don’t know me.
By not-knowing we follow nature’s course.
Ryōkan Taigu, 1758 – 1831
