Thursday, October 22, 2015

Silence


Silence is our real nature. What we are fundamentally, is only silence. Silence is free from beginning and end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it
simply is.

In silence all objects have their home ground. It is the light that gives objects their shape
and form. All movement, all activity is harmonized by silence.

Silence has no opposite in noise. It is beyond positive and negative. Silence dissolves all objects. It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind. Silence has nothing to do with mind. It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because it is our nearness. Silence is freedom without restriction or center. It is our wholeness, neither inside nor outside the body. Silence is joyful, not pleasurable. It is not psychological. It is feeling without a feeler. Silence needs no intermediary.

Silence is holy. It is healing. There is no fear in silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty. It is untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates.  Silence is the absence of oneself. Or rather, silence is the absence of absence.

Sound which comes from silence is music. All activity is creative when it comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning. Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all art. Silence is the home ground of all creative activity. What is truly creative is the word, is Truth. Silence is the word. Silence is Truth.

The one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.





Jean Klein
Photo:  Peter Bowers














Wednesday, October 21, 2015

teaching silence


I teach silence
in all languages
through intensive examination of:
the starry sky,
the Sinanthropus’ jaws,
a grasshopper’s hop,
an infant’s fingernails,
plankton,
a snowflake.





Wislawa Szymborska
Classifieds
photo:  Peter Bowers






Sunday, October 11, 2015

Thanking


I think as long as you are a human being 
there is thanking, gratitude for being, 
not for being human, 
but for being
what you fundamentally are.
Thanking for the sake of thanking.





Jean Klein
Transmission of the Flame 







Saturday, October 10, 2015

thanks giving


Wonder, as the child of mystery, is a natural source of prayer.
One of the most beautiful forms of prayer is the prayer of appreciation.  This prayer arises out of the recognition of the gracious kindness of creation.  We have been given so much.  We could never have merited or earned it.  When you appreciate all you are and all you have, you can celebrate and enjoy it.  You realize how fortunate you are.  Providence is blessing you and inviting you to be generous with your gifts.  You are able to bless life and give thanks to God.  The prayer of appreciation has no agenda but gracious thanks.  Nothing is given to you for yourself alone.  When you receive some blessing or gift, you do it in the name of others; through you, they, too, will come to share in the kindness of Providence.




John O'Donohue
from Eternal Echoes
Photo: Peter Morgan







Friday, October 9, 2015

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