of ordinary things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things,
how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Pat Schneider, 1934 – 2020, American writer, poet, writing teacher and editor

Things stick

“The Great way is not difficult. It just avoids picking and choosing.” There is a Taoist flavor to this saying. The sense of following the water path through life. The water if it runs into a stone, it just makes its way around. The water is clear and has no attachments which is why we have a little bowl of water on the altar.…. If we are clear, we hang onto the clarity. This old student doesn’t even hang onto that. Do you still hang onto anything, or not? So we could say that the greatest method of meditation is that whatever comes up, just don’t cling to it. Whatever comes up, let it go. If you can do this, you’ll find the way home very quickly. But it’s hard. Things stick to you.


John Tarrant

Hold it lightly

The water that you see in the waterfall

has already rushed to the great ocean.

Life is like the rushing water of the waterfall. From a distance it appears solid, but when you look closely, you see that it is in constant movement, continuous change, rushing like a cascade of long white rope

Tangen Harada Roshi, Throw yourself into the House of Buddha

Where do we find our value?

How do you let go of attachment to things?

Don’t even try. It’s impossible.

Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them

Eckhart Tolle

All that is

A new month and a new season.

May all that is unforgiven in you,
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you,
Blossom into a future,
Graced with love.

John O’Donohue, Benedictus

what is required

“Noise” in this image can stand for all the hassles which we encounter this day

For the mind that is silent, noise is as direct a spoke into the hub of silence as are birdsong, wind, and waves.

It requires nothing more than to meet noise with stillness and not commentary.

Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence