Lake and Maple

I want to give myself

utterly

as this maple

that burned and burned

for three days without stinting

and then in two more

dropped off every leaf;

as this lake that,

no matter what comes

to its green-blue depths,

both takes and returns it.

In the still heart that refuses nothing,

the world is twice-born—

two earths wheeling,

two heavens,

two egrets reaching

down into subtraction;

even the fish

for an instant doubled,

before it is gone.

I want the fish.

I want the losing it all

when it rains and I want

the returning transparence.

I want the place

by the edge-flowers where

the shallow sand is deceptive,

where whatever

steps in must plunge,

and I want that plunging.

I want the ones

who come in secret to drink

only in early darkness,

and I want the ones

who are swallowed.

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.

Jane Hirshfield

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Cream, Two Sugars, Please

Within… Fullness, Completion, and Bliss,

Without… She prefers milk chocolate to dark.

Within… nothing can be added, nothing taken away,

Without… everything comes to Her, and goes.

Within… Unmoving, Ineffable Sublimity,

Without… She experiences ever changing manifestation.

Within… joy and sorrow have never been,

Without… She Shines, even in the midst of tears.

Within… time and space have never existed,

Without… She is born, grows old, and dies.

Within… within and without never were,

Without… within and without ever are.

Within… no preferences, propensities, proclivities,

Without… cream, two sugars, please.

Within… The Sun Shines,

Without… All is Illumined.

Chuck Surface

this we have now

This we have now 

is not imagination. 

This is not grief or joy. 

Not a judging state, 

or an elation, 

or sadness. 

Those come and go. 

This is the presence 

that doesn't.

Rumi

Translation:  Coleman Barks 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

What's in the Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring. 

It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.

The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.

The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.

The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing. 

The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.

If she stands still it will catch up with her.

Pause with us here a while.

Put your ear to the wall of your heart.

Listen for the whisper of knowing there.

Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.

They've been frightened - sat on 'till the spirit cried "uncle."

Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.

They know he's out there looking for them, and they want to be found,

But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,

And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.

So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.

Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,

And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.

You see there the consequences of carelessness,

And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.

The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don't build many temples anymore.

Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.

Or maybe it can't be sustained inside a building.

Buildings crumble.

It's the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,

What would you worship there?

What would you bring to sacrifice?

What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.   

Tom Barrett

Photos:  Peter Bowers

Intimacy

There's no intimacy in talking “about” The Beloved,

Moving away from Her into words and concepts,

As if She is not Present.

How rude.

She exists in the Quiet Stillness of our Heart,

When Attention returns from outward wandering,

And falls into Her awaiting arms.

How Inexpressibly Beautiful.

Some have turned Her into a science,

And argue Her existence, lawyerly.

They know nothing of Her.

Arid minds.

She cannot be “proven” through argument,

Or anyone “convinced” of Her reality,

Short of direct Experience.

Direct... Experience.

Only Longing entices the Beloved,

From Her Secret Garden…

In the Cave of your Heart.

How Ineffably… Sublime.

Chuck Surface

Photo:  Peter Bowers

devotion

not pretending to know

not pretending to not know

she stepped into her shoes







tushti

interbeing

The sun has entered me.

The sun has entered me together with the cloud

and the river.

I myself have entered the river,

and I have entered the sun

with the cloud and the river.

There has not been a moment

when we do not interpenetrate.

But before the sun entered me,

the sun was in me -

also the cloud and the river.

Before I entered the river,

I was already in it. 

There has not been a moment

When we have not inter-been.

Therefore you know

that as long as you continue to breathe,

I continue to be in you.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo:  Peter Morgan

by presence

The teacher teaches by presence.

The language of presence is

more powerful than all the verbalizations

from all the languages from the world put together.

It is the eloquence of existence.

If you allow life to become your teacher, it teaches.

But if you turn to books

and want to know whether it be duality or non-duality,

one god or many, one creator, or two, etc.,

if you turn to books and theories,

if you want to dig into the past and base your perception on that,

then the opportunity to live first hand would be missed.

Vimala Thakar

photo:  Peter Morgan

unending love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age-old pain,

It's ancient tale of being apart or together,

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount

At the heart of time, love of one for another.

We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same

Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-

Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,

The love of all man’s days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours 

And the songs of every poet past and forever. 

Rabindranath Tagore

Photo:  Peter Bowers

blessed are those who know nothing for certain

blessed are those who know nothing for certain,

whose curiosity keeps them beyond the claws of conclusion,

who seek as an impulse of wonderment rather than for gain,

who question everything the pundits proclaim as truth;

whose questions deliver them, willingly or not,

to the fiery face of the Unnameable, and

who find the courage to keep a “yes” alive in spite of terror;

who come back speechless and trembling with gratitude

blessed are those for whom the encounter enlivens a capacity

and a willingness to hold both hands out to the world

(one to hold grief, the other, gratefulness)

for their heart knows the two as one;

who, without choice, stand naked in knowingness;

whose fulfilment is refreshed with every breath;

who are quietly content (which is not to say inert or passive)

in spite of all that life appears to heave at them

blessed are those who know these contented ones,

who count them among their friends and neighbours,

who seek them out for their simple wisdom, knowing

they have nothing to spin or sell – nothing to bestow

other than their crazy head-shaking heart-healing joy:

innocent – ingenious – immanent

miriam louisa

with thanks:  Echoes From Emptiness

in timelessness and nowhere

Home again. But what was home? 

The fish has vast ocean for home. 

And man has timelessness and nowhere. 

"I won't delude myself with the fallacy of home," he said to himself.

 The four walls are a blanket I wrap around in,

 in timelessness and nowhere, to go to sleep.

D.H. Lawrence
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

V.

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.





Wallace Stevens
Photo:  Peter Bowers