6/ We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. ( T.S. Eliot ) If death is the end of the illusion of being a person, birth is the beginning of that […]
7/ “Nothing is real but God. Nothing matters but love for God.” ( Maher Baba ) In sailing, as in living, there’s a place we all find our selves in, sooner or later –it’s called the Doldrums. Now the term “Doldrums” describes an area off the east coast of Africa well known and […]
8/ There is This, this Love. There is this, this Infinitude. There is this, this Silence. There is this, this Mystery. There is this, this Kiss. All there is is this.
9/ The uncarved block contains all possibilities. Its renderings are wonder and beauty. From One it yields many. From No-thing, myriad somethings. From Love it produces Itself. The uncarved block is clear, lucid, solid as Reality, Yet it has no qualities, No measure, no values. It contains Life But does not hold it. Secure, it […]
10/ This is one of those mornings when I stare into blankness and wonder what to say about it. The pauses are protracted, punctuated by an occasional still – born thought that doesn’t gain traction. I sit quietly receptive, willing to wait. Mind reminds me of the kind of willingness of which Lao Tzu […]
11/ For the past fifteen years or so, I have watched the sunlight and the lamplight play across a pair of 1800 year olds on my dining room buffet. They’re Han Dynasty (200 BC – 200 AD) Chinese terracotta funeral figures, about 15 inches tall; one is an Archer with wide sleeved, flowing arms outstretched […]
12/ I have approximately 23,336 days today on my body’s odometer. Mind and body are showing a lot of road. As Leonard Cohen puts it: “I ache in the parts I used to play.” The bones ache, the gut aches, the brain aches. Everything leaks too! The contraption is always in the garage for […]
13/ It seems I’ve broken the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not give up!” a lot lately. I have given up practically everything I don’t need. Well, everything I don’t think I need. There’s a kind of abandonment of thought in favor of simple being. It’s as if the fist of my mind has relaxed. There’s […]
14/ “He abides in the Self, detached from all activities, mental or physical…true happiness belongs to such a master-idler…” ( Unknown Zen Master ) Life seems so much like an experiment in doing, in selecting, in editing our story to leave out the bad parts and leave in the good. We are daily at […]
16/ When two realities collide, we’re in for a helleva surprise! I’m talking about that mouthless scream we all have when we see we’re wedged tight between our contradictions; when we’re in such a tight place we can’t breathe, and yet somehow we must! At first, the old tricks do the trick and we […]