All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are
and who you are is where you will be
when death takes you across the river.
John Squadra, 1932 – American artist and poet
What matters
Tag: Life
This month: Let life take you by the hand
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.
He says everyone of us is a child,
everyone of us is ancient,
everyone of us has a body.
He says everyone of us is frightened.
He says everyone of us has to find
a way to live with fear..…
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love...
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
Roger Keyes, 1942-2020 American professor of East Asian studies, art historian and poet, Hokusai says [extracts]
Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese artist, best known as author of the woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
The basic human predicament
And, if I may say it in a very condensed way, it is precisely the godlike in ourselves that we are ambivalent about, fascinated by and fearful of, motivated to and defensive against.
This is one aspect of the basic human predicament, that we are simultaneously worms and gods.
Abraham Maslow, Towards a Psychology of Being
Sunday Quote: Be your own island
In some fundamental way, happiness is found within, not in external circumstances, and we cannot give responsibility for it over to another person
So Ānanda, be your own island,
your own refuge,
with no other refuge
The Buddha’s Last Teaching, recorded in the Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta (sutra)
Settle
Early Spring growth is all around, reminding us to trust…
Settling, white dew
does not discriminate,
each drop its home.
Nishiyama Sōin, 1605 – 1682 Japanese poet, founder of the Danrin school of haikai poetry
Ways of transformation
Most people today seems to think that sacrifice means giving something up. This is how shallow our religious sense has become.
Sacrifice really involves the art of drawing energy from one level and reinvesting it at another level to produce a higher form of consciousness.
Robert Johnson, Jungian Analyst, Balancing Heaven and Earth
