virtue

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largerloves

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before the names

 

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I dream of the silence
the day before Adam came
to name the animals,

The gold skins newly dropped
from God's bright fingers, still
implicit with the light. 

A day like this, perhaps:
a winter whiteness
haunting the creation,

as we are sometimes
haunted by the space
we fill, or by the forms

we might have known
before the names,
beyond the gloss of things.

—John Burnside

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white fox image

 

for nothing is fixed

 

.

For nothing is fixed,
 

forever, forever, forever, 


it is not fixed;
 

the earth is always shifting,

the light is always changing,

the sea does not cease to grind down rock.

Generations do not cease to be born,
 

and we are responsible to them
 

because we are the only witnesses they have.
 

The sea rises, the light fails, 


lovers cling to each other, 


and children cling to us.
 

The moment we cease to hold each other, 


the moment we break faith with one another,
 

the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

—James Baldwin

For Nothing Is Fixed

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a triangle has a spiritual value of its own

 

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Many colors have been described as rough or sticky, others as smooth and uniform, so that one feels inclined to stroke them (e.g., dark ultramarine, chromic oxide green, and rose madder). Equally the distinction between warm and cold colors belongs to this connection. Some colors appear soft (rose madder), others hard (cobalt green, blue-green oxide), so that even fresh from the tube they seem to be dry. The expression “scented colors” is frequently met with. And finally the sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would try to express bright yellow in the bass notes, or dark lake in the treble… 

Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. 

This essential connection between color and form brings us to the question of the influences of form on color. Form alone, even though totally abstract and geometrical, has a power of inner suggestion. A triangle (without the accessory consideration of its being acute — or obtuse — angled or equilateral) has a spiritual value of its own. In connection with other forms, this value may be somewhat modified, but remains in quality the same. The case is similar with a circle, a square, or any conceivable geometrical figure [which has] a subjective substance in an objective shell. 

The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life. It exists and has power to create spiritual atmosphere; and from this inner standpoint one judges whether it is a good work of art or a bad one. If its “form” is bad it means that the form is too feeble in meaning to call forth corresponding vibrations of the soul… The artist is not only justified in using, but it is his duty to use only those forms which fulfill his own need… Such spiritual freedom is as necessary in art as it is in life.


—Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944)
Concerning the Spiritual in Art

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source and photo

Andy Ilachinski
taoofdigitalphotography
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be calm and full of peace

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Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the day’s golden grains. 

Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.

—Saint Seraphim of Sarov

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question

 

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You ask why I make my home
in the mountain forest
and I smile, and am silent,
and even my soul remains quiet:
It lives in the other world
which no one owns.
The peach trees blossom.
The water flows.


—Li Po

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dear friends

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Practice until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth, in the child starving, in the political prisoner. Continue until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket, on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop.

Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy. See and listen with the whole of your being. 

If you are fully present, the rain of Dharma will water the deepest seeds in your consciousness, and tomorrow, while you are washing the dishes or looking at the blue sky, that seed will spring forth, and love and understanding will appear as a beautiful flower.

[..]


You too are a tree. During a storm of emotions, you should not stay at the level of the head or the heart, which are like the top of the tree. You have to leave the heart, the eye of the storm, and come back to the trunk of the tree. 

Your trunk is one centimeter below your navel. Focus there, paying attention only to the movement of your abdomen, and continue to breathe.
 

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

. . .

Inside us there is something that has no name,

that something is what we are.

—José Saramago

Blindness 

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wait - what ?

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your longing is made out of the very stuff for which you are longing

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What we are looking for is what is looking. 
 
―Francis of Assisi

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The now is our self. 

We are not present in the now.

We are the now.

The now is not a container that contains our self along with everything else. 

It is our self, eternal presence.


—Rupert Spira
Presence

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questions

 

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You said, ‘Who’s at the door?’

I said, ‘Your slave.’

You said, ‘What do you want?’

‘To see you and bow.’

‘How long will you wait?’

‘Until you call.’

‘How long will you cook?’

‘Till the Resurrection.’

We talked through the door. 
I claimed a great love and that I had
given up what the world gives, to be in that love.

‘You said, ‘Such claims require a witness.’
I said, ‘This longing, these tears.’

You said, ‘Discredited witnesses.’
I said, ‘Surely not!’

You said, ‘Who did you come with?’
‘The majestic imagination you gave me.’

‘Why did you come?’
‘The musk of your wine was in the air.’

‘What is your intention?’
‘Friendship.’

‘What do you want from me?’
‘Grace.’

Then you asked, ‘Where have you been most comfortable?’
‘In the palace.’

‘What did you see there?’
‘Amazing things.’

‘Then why is it so desolate?’
‘Because all that can be taken away in a second.’

‘Who can do that?’
‘This clear discernment.’

‘Where can you live safely then?’
‘In Surrender.’

‘What is this giving up?’
‘A peace that saves us.’

‘Is there no threat of disaster?’
‘Only what comes in your street, inside your love.’

‘How do you walk there?’

‘In perfection.’

Now silence. 
If I told more of this conversation,
those listening would leave themselves.

There would be no door, no roof or window either!


—Rumi
talking through the door

 .

from an untitled poem

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To sing is to begin a sentence

like “I want to get well." 

I am not born for nothing
and neither are you:

Heaven never wept
over nothing.

—Thomas Merton

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(tears)

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bless

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Let me imagine that we will come again 
when we want to and it will be spring 
we will be no older than we ever were 
the worn griefs will have eased like the early cloud 
through which the morning slowly comes to itself 
and the ancient defenses against the dead 
will be done with and left to the dead at last 
the light will be as it is now in the garden 
that we have made here these years together 
of our long evenings and astonishment

—W.S. Merwin
To Paula in Late Spring

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War and Peace Within

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When we practice deep looking directed toward the heart of reality, we receive help, we receive understanding, we receive the wisdom that makes us free.

—Thich Nhat Hanh
True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart

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impart(ial

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Heaven and Earth are impartial;
they treat all of creation as straw dogs.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she treats everyone like a straw dog.

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
it is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.

It is better not to speak of things you do not understand.


—Lao Tzu
from the Tao Te Ching
J. H. McDonald version

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social life, excerpt

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What I like about the trees is how
they do not talk about the failure of their parents
and what I like about the grasses is that
they are not grasses in recovery

and what I like about the flowers is
that they are not flowers in need of
empowerment or validation. They sway

upon their thorny stems
as if whatever was about to happen next tonight
was sure to be completely interesting.

—Tony Hoagland

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no leaders, please

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invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don't swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.


—Charles Bukowski

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supposing i dreamed this)

.

supposing i dreamed this)
only imagine,when day has thrilled
you are a house around which
i am a wind-

your walls will not reckon how
strangely my life is curved
since the best he can do
is to peer through windows,unobserved

-listen,for(out of all
things)dream is noone’s fool;
if this wind who i am prowls
carefully around this house of you

love being such,or such,
the normal corners of your heart
will never guess how much
my wonderful jealousy is dark

if light should flower:
or laughing sparkle from
the shut house(around and around
which a poor wind will roam


–E. E. Cummings 

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Taking Care of Anger | Thich Nhat Hanh (short teaching video)

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What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving,

or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey 

to find its source, and how the moon wept

without her lover's 

warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts, We wither

like fields if someone close

does not rain their

kindness

upon 

us.

—Meister Eckhart

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true nature

. 

We are a wave appearing on the surface of the ocean. The body of a wave does not last very long - perhaps only ten to twenty seconds.

The wave is subject to beginning and ending, to going up and coming down. The wave may be caught in the idea that ‘I am here now, and I won’t be here later.’ And the wave may feel afraid or even angry.

But the wave also has her ocean body. She has come from the ocean, and she will go back to the ocean. She has both her wave body and her ocean body. She is not only a wave; she is also the ocean.

The wave does not need to look for a separate ocean body, because she is in this very moment both her wave body and her ocean body. As soon as the wave can go back to herself and touch her true nature, which is water, then all fear and anxiety disappear.


—Thich Nhat Hanh

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this is how the wind shifts

.

This is how the wind shifts:
Like the thoughts of an old human,
Who still thinks eagerly
And despairingly. 

The wind shifts like this:
Like a human without illusions,
Who still feels irrational things within her.

The wind shifts like this:
Like humans approaching proudly,
Like humans approaching angrily.

This is how the wind shifts:
Like a human, heavy and heavy,
Who does not care

 

—Wallace Stevens

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hey

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I am yours.

Don’t give myself back to me.


—Rumi

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non-buddha elements

💗

more than mirage

.

Although most are totally naked

and too scant for even the slightest

color and although they have no voice

that I’ve ever heard for cry or song, they are,

nevertheless, more than mirage, more

than hallucination, more than falsehood. 

They have confronted sulfuric

boiling black sea bottoms and stayed,

held on under ten tons of polar ice,

established themselves in dense salts

and acids, survived eating metal ions.

They are more committed than oblivion,

more prolific than stars. 

Far too ancient for scripture, each

one bears in its one cell one text—

the first whit of alpha, the first

jot of bearing, beneath the riling

sun the first nourishing of self. 

Too lavish for saints, too trifling

for baptism, they have existed

throughout never gaining girth enough

to hold a firm hope of salvation.

Too meager in heart for compassion,

too lean for tears, less in substance

than sacrifice, not one has ever

carried a cross anywhere. 

And not one of their trillions

has ever been given a tombstone.

I’ve never noticed a lessening

of light in the ceasing of any one

of them. They are more mutable

than mere breathing and vanishing,

more mysterious than resurrection,

too minimal for death.


—Pattiann Rogers
Address: The Archaeans, One Cell Creatures

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brainpickings
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a poet reflects

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The sky said I am watching
to see what you
can make out of nothing

I was looking up and I said

I thought you

were supposed to be doing that

the sky said Many

are clinging to that

I am giving you a chance

I was looking up and I said

I am the only chance I have

then the sky did not answer

and here we are

with our names for the days

the vast days that do not listen to us

—W. S. Merwin

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secrets of the spiritual life

.

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Pandemic & Mythic Meanings of this Cultural Moment

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The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart. —Yeats

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 When we practice deep looking directed toward the heart of reality, we receive help, we receive understanding, we receive the wisdom that makes us free.
 

—Thich Nhat Hanh
True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart

💗