Let it go

A very windy day yesterday.

As the leaves fall, my favourite Autumn chant, the final lines of the Heart Sutra – finding an inner rest, beyond all coming or going.

Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā

[“Gone, Gone, Gone beyond, Gone completely beyond. Awakening, So be it”]

Gone. I release my grip on the small self. I let it go.
Gone. I let thoughts, opinions, and ideas drift away like clouds.
Gone beyond. I cross to the other shore, beyond division.
Gone completely beyond. Nothing is left to cling to, I rest in vast openness.
Awakening. Clear seeing dawns, the truth shines quietly.
So be it. May this awakening be sealed in my heart.

breakthrough

Michaelmas: Traditionally in Ireland the day to mark the end of harvest The traditional greeting – “May Michaelmas féinín on you.” – wished for an abundant harvest

The feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels. Those sent to help or guide us.

Where is the angel

to wrestle with me and wound
not my thigh but my throat,
so curses and blessings flow storming out

and the glass shatters, and the iron sunders?
 

Denise Levertov, Where is the Angel [extract]

Each day

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.

Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways,

and they’re still beautiful

Alice Walker

Defended

Grace is the word for what it takes to lay down your armour.

To stop protecting yourself long enough to be touched by something beyond your own strategies

Padraig O’Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

A simple practice

As we grow we tend to increasingly live in the future, and what “may” happen.

A baby smiles between fifty and seventy times a day

and a toddler six hundred times, according to research.

I’m sure some of us have asked ourselves where that smile goes.

What robs us of it?

Goldie Hawn, 10 Mindful Minutes

just listen

I don’t know anything about consciousness.

I just try to teach my students to hear the birds sing.

Shunryu Suzuki.