Wednesday, November 25, 2015

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





Wednesday, November 18, 2015

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









Tuesday, November 17, 2015

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.






Photo:  Peter Bowers







Saturday, November 14, 2015

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







Wednesday, November 11, 2015

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







Tuesday, November 10, 2015

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