Nothing we see or hear is perfect.
But right there in the imperfection
is perfect reality
Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
Tag: Joy
We will never be here again
The gods envy us.
They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last.
Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.
You will never be lovelier than you are now.
We will never be here again.
Homer, The Iliad
photo huykhanhthai
Sunday Quote: Your Comment
That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning.
“Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
photo of Bantry bay, philip Halling
Learning from water
I want the way
the water sees without eyes,
hears without ears,
shivers without will or fear
at the gentlest touch.
I want the way it
accepts the cold moonlight
and lets it pass,
the way it lets
all of it pass
without judgment or comment.
There is a lake,
Lalla Ded sang, no larger
than one seed of mustard,
that all things return to.
O heart, if you
will not, cannot, give me the lake,
then give me the song.
from Jane Hirshfield, Lake and Maple
The smallest thing
To study a single speck of dust is to study the whole universe
Dogen, 1200 – 1253
And he also showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand. It seemed to me as round as a ball. I gazed at it and thought, ‘What can this be?’ The answer came thus, ‘It is everything that is made.’ I marveled how this could be, for it was so small it seemed it might fall suddenly into nothingness. Then I heard the answer, ‘It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it. All things have their being in this way.’
Julian of Norwich, 1342 – 1416, Revelations of Divine Love
photo US National Archives and Records Administration: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency
A real miracle
I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
photo richard webb
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