Only Love

In the end there is only love 

and love can never die, 

can never be born, 

can never die.  

Jean Klein

Photo:  Peter Bowers

sit and be still

Sit and be still

until in the time

of no rain you hear

beneath the dry wind's

commotion in the trees

the sound of flowing

water among the rocks,

a stream unheard before,

and you are where

breathing is prayer.

Wendell Berry

Photo:  Peter Bowers

All This Nonsense

Gautama experienced a profound shift,

In the nature of his Experience of Being,

And, responding to questions about it…

Gave birth to Buddhism.

But when Gautama died, in no time at all,

There arose debate and disagreement,

About this, that, and the other…

About “true” Buddhism…

And there arose, from one View, many.

So it seems, with all great teachings,

The Master's passing, and in no time at all,

Disagreement and debate…

And the arising, from one View, of many.

How vast and varied, expressions of “truth”,

Each indicative of the utter futility,

Of describing the Indescribable…

Of capturing The Great Mystery in a jar.

All in the nature of things, it appears,

But oh, so very wearying,

Wearying enough to drive one…

Within.

Within… where long ago in distant lands,

In the experiences of those long dead,

All of this nonsense began…

Within.

Perhaps we, too, should venture There,

And enjoining both Heart and Mind,

In that Inward Journey…

Find out what all this nonsense is about.

Chuck Surface

Photo:  Peter Bowers

beauty

Be helpless, dumbfounded,

Unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come from grace

to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.

If we say we can, we're lying.

If we say No, we don't see it,

That No will behead us

And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,

Beside ourselves, and only that, so

Miraculous beings come running to help.

Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,

We shall be saying finally,

With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.

When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,

We shall be a mighty kindness.

Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks

Photo:  Peter Bowers

great self

The universe must be experienced as the Great Self. 

Each is fulfilled in the other: the Great Self is fulfilled in the individual self, the individual self is fulfilled in the Great Self. Alienation is overcome as soon as we experience this surge of energy from the source that has brought the universe through the centuries.

New fields of energy become available to support the human venture. These new energies find expression and support in celebration. For in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration.

It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself.

Thomas Berry

Photo:  Peter Bowers

unbelief

Unbelief is good medicine, undoing belief

better:

all beings free to leave their being

and enter silence.

The nameless tree with its forest

of green,

the endless expanse called

sky, beaks and

feathered wings with their urgent

conversations;

all around, the light that sets the vital body

to humming,

and the dark of re-creation:

the world held for us in promise

until it is loosened from

our thinking.

Andrew Colliver

Photo:  Peter Bowers