Wind Bell

2010-12-25T18:55:00.002-08:00

The
Earth
Lifts its glass to the sun
And light -- light
Is poured.

A bird
Comes and sits on a crystal rim
And from my forest cave I
Hear singing.

So I run to the edge of existence
And join my soul in love.

I lift my heart to God
And grace is poured.

An emerald bird rises from inside me
And now sits
Upon the Beloved's
Glass.

I have left that dark cave forever.
My body has blended with His.

I lay my wing
As a bridge to you

So that you can join us
Singing.

Hafiz

2010-12-25T18:55:00.001-08:00

2010-12-24T18:47:00.000-08:00

This love sacrifices all souls, however wise, however "awakened"
Cuts off their heads without a sword, hangs them without a scaffold.
We are the guests of the one who devours his guests
The friends of the one who slaughters his friends....
Although by his gaze he brings death to so many lovers
Let yourself be killed by him: is he not the water of life?
Never, ever, grow bitter: he is the friend and kills gently.
Keep your heart noble, for this most noble love
Kills only kings near God and men free from passion.
We are like the night, earth's shadow.
He is the Sun: He splits open the night with a sword soaked in dawn....

The man to whom is unveiled the mystery of Love
Exists no longer, but vanishes into love.
Place before the Sun a burning candle
And watch its brilliance disappear before that blaze,
The candle exists no longer, it is transformed into Light,
There are no more signs of it, it itself becomes sign...

Rumi

2010-12-19T18:34:00.000-08:00

It is the pang of separation that spreads
throughout the world and gives birth
to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.
It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence
all night from star to star and becomes lyric
among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July.
It is this overspreading pain that deepens
into loves and desires, into sufferings and joys
in human homes; and this it is that ever melts
and flows in songs through my poet's heart.

Tagore

2010-12-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

Accept me, my lord, accept me for this while.
Let those orphaned days that passed without thee be forgotten.
Only spread this little moment wide across thy lap, holding it under thy light.
I have wandered in pursuit of voices that drew me yet led me nowhere.
Now let me sit in peace and listen to thy words in the soul of my silence.
Do not turn away thy face from my heart's dark secrets,
but burn them till they are alight with thy fire.

Tagore

2010-12-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have discovered my deep deathless being:
Masked by my front of mind, immense, serene
It meets the world with an Immortal's seeing,
A god-spectator of the human scene.

No pain and sorrow of the heart and flesh
Can tread that pure and voiceless sanctuary.
Danger and fear, Fate's hounds, slipping their leash
Rend body and nerve, - the timeless Spirit is free.

Awake, God's ray and witness in my breast,
In the undying substance of my soul
Flamelike, inscrutable the almighty Guest.
Death nearer comes and Destiny takes her toll;

He hears the blows that shatter Nature's house:
Calm sits He, formidable, luminous.

Sri Aurobindo

2010-12-10T18:14:00.000-08:00

To know Tao
meditate
and still the mind.
Knowledge comes with perseverance.

The Way is neither full nor empty;
a modest and quiet nature understands this.
The empty vessel, the uncarved block;
nothing is more mysterious.

When enlightenment arrives
don't talk too much about it;
just live it in your own way.
With humility and depth, rewards come naturally.

The fragrance of blossoms soon passes;
the ripeness of fruit is gone in a twinkling.
Our time in this world is so short,
better to avoid regret:
Miss no opportunity to savor the ineffable.

Like a golden beacon signaling on a moonless night,
Tao guides our passage through this transitory realm.
In moments of darkness and pain
remember all is cyclical.
Sit quietly behind your wooden door:
Spring will come again.

Loy Ching-Yuen

2010-12-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

2010-12-09T14:26:00.001-08:00

We are the driving ones.
Ah, but the step of time:
think of it as a dream
in what forever remains.

All that is hurrying
soon will be over with;
only what lasts can bring
us to the truth.

Young men, don't put your trust
into the trials of flight,
into the hot and quick.

All things already rest:
darkness and morning light,
flower and book.

Rilke

Sunset

2010-12-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colours
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs —

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

Rilke

2010-12-08T02:24:00.000-08:00

My soul arose at dawn and, listening, heard
One voice abroad, a solitary bird,
A song not master of its note, a cry
That persevered into eternity.
My soul leaned out into the dawn to hear
In the world's solitude its winged compeer
And, hearkening what the Angel had to say,
Saw lustre in midnight and a secret day
Was opened to it. It beheld the stars
Born from a thought and knew how being prepares.
Then I remembered how I woke from sleep
And made the skies, built earth, formed ocean deep.

Sri Aurobindo

2010-12-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

I
Oh tear-filled figure who, like a sky held back,
grows heavy above the landscape of her sorrow.
And when she weeps, the gentle raindrops fall,
slanting upon the sand-bed of her heart.

O heavy with weeping. Scale to weigh all tears.
Who felt herself not sky, since she was shining
and sky exists only for clouds to form in.

How clear it is, how close, your land of sorrow,
beneath the stearn sky's oneness. Like a face
that lies there, slowly waking up and thinking
horizontally, into endless depths.

II
It is nothing but a breath, the void.
And that green fulfillment
of blossoming trees: a breath.
We, who are still the breathed-upon,
today still the breathed-upon, count
this slow breathing of earth,
whose hurry we are.

III
Ah, but the winters! The earth's mysterious
turning-within. Where around the dead
in the pure receding of sap,
boldness is gathered,
the boldness of future springtimes.
Where imagination occurs
beneath what is rigid; where all the green
worn thin by the vast summers
again turns into a new
insight and the mirror of intuition;
where the flowers' color
wholly forgets that lingering of our eyes.

Rilke

2010-12-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

Who are You, who keeps my heart awake?
Every moment is lit by You, so that I feel
no longer separate from You.

Whose flute is playing sweet and bitter
songs of love? It starts the cuckoos singing,
and calls the nectar-heavy bees of my desire.

A young wife could be blooming
in the season of honey, watching the moon,
and be stolen in a moment.

Touch Radha, Whoever You are. She shivers
at Your feet, risking everything to bear
love's searing fire. Master, is that not You?

She's grown reckless with her soul.
Her fear is gone, her hesitation. Who are You?
She'll weep at Your lotus feet until she knows.

Tagore

2010-12-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

Let's offer flowers, pour a cup of libation,
split open the skies and start anew on creation.

If the forces of grief invade our lovers' veins,
cupbearer and I will wash away this temptation.

With rose water we'll mellow crimson wine's bitter cup;
we'll sugar the fire to sweeten smoke's emanation.

Take this fine lyre, musician, strike up a love song;
let's dance, sing all night, go wild in celebration.

As dust, O West Wind, let us rise to the Heavens,
floating free in Creator's glow of elation.

If mind desires to return while heart cries to stay,
here's a quarrel for love's deliberation.

Alas, these words and songs go for naught in this land;
come, Hafiz, let's create a new generation.

Hafiz

2010-12-03T19:07:00.000-08:00

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Wendell Berry

2010-12-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

XXXII
I've caught a glimpse of him in dreams:
expert hunter of himself,
every minute in ambush.

Antonio Machado(proverbs)

2010-12-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

2010-12-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

Loghman of Sarrakhs cried: "Dear God, behold
Your faithful servant, poor, bewildered, old--
An old slave is permitted to go free;
I've spent my life in patient loyalty,
I'm bent with grief, my black hair's turned to snow;
Grant manumission, Lord, and let me go."
A voice replied: "When you have gained release
from mind and thought, your slavery will cease;
You will be free when these two disappear."
He said: "Lord, it is You whom I revere;
What are the mind and all its ways to me?"
And left them there and then -- in ecstasy
He danced and clapped his hands and boldly cried:
"Who am I now? The slave I was has died;
What's freedom, servitude, and where are they?
Both happiness and grief have fled away;
I neither own nor lack all qualities;
My blindness looks on secret mysteries --
I know not whether You are I, I You;
I lose myself in You, there is no two."

Farid ud-Din Attar

2010-11-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

How restlessly the buddha sleeps
between my ears, dreaming his dreams
of emptiness, writing his verbless poems
(I almost rejected"green tree
white goat red sun blue sea.")
Verbs are time's illusion, he says.

In the stillness that surrounds us
we think we have to probe our wounds,
but with what? Mind caresses mind
not by saying no or yes but neither.

Turn your watch back to your birth
for a moment, then way ahead beyond
any expectation. There never was a coffin
worth a dime. These words emerge
from the skin as the sweat of gods
who drink only from the great mothers breasts.

Buddha sleeps on, disturbed when I disturb
him from his liquid dreams of blood and bone.
With out comment he sees the raven carrying
off the infant snake, the lovers' foggy
gasps, the lion's tongue that skins us.

One day we dozed against a white pine stump
in a world of dogwood and sugar plum blossoms.
An eye for an eye, he said, trading
a left for my right, the air green tea
in the sky's blue cup.

Jim Harrison (Saving Daylight)

2010-11-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

O Winebringer, the sun is up. Fill my goblet full of wine.
Hurry, for night will come, and then we'll have to sleep.

Outside, the doomsayers are announcing the end of the world.
Quick! give us some of Your delicious wine!

If it is fame and glory that you are looking for from the sun,
Then go back to sleep; there is only divine knowledge to its rays.

When Judgment Day arrives and the sky becomes a jug of poor clay,
Make your skull into a clay cup, and fill it with this pitcher's wine.

Now is not the time to be making small talk with your friends;
Speak only of the cup and of the wine.

Hafiz, get up! Get out of bed. You've work to do,
And the worship of wine is all the worthwhile work there is!

Hafiz

2010-11-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

here's my snowy crown
time's tinted decrepitude
there's the frost in the courtyard
autumn's glittery breath
now I'm sick and just watching my wife
pick cure-alls
then I'm frozen waiting for the maid
to comb my hair
without the body
what use fame?
worldly things
I've put aside
tranquilly
I delve my heart
determined now
to learn from Empty Boats!

Po Chu-i

2010-11-26T18:45:00.000-08:00

2010-11-25T18:23:00.000-08:00

Sitting alone in peace before these cliffs
the full moon is heaven's beacon
the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light
wide open the spirit of itself is pure
hold fast to the void realize its subtle mystery
look at the moon like this
this moon that is the heart's pivot

Han-Shan

2010-11-25T03:45:00.000-08:00

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought
was your grief

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams
he's living in another town
in the dream he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality
of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep

Humankind is being led
along an evolving course,
through this migration
of intelligences
and though we seem
to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually
startle us back
to the truth of
who we are

Rumi

2010-11-24T00:23:00.000-08:00

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.

Ikkyu

2010-11-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

click picture

Someone lives in a mountain gorge
cloud robe and sunset tassels
holding sweet plants he would share
but the road is long and hard
burdened by regrets and doubts
old and unaccomplished
called by others crippled
he stands alone steadfast

Han-Shan

2010-11-21T19:31:00.000-08:00

Because the mind is free --
Listening to the rain
Dripping from the eaves,
The drops become
One with me.

Dogen

2010-11-19T18:02:00.000-08:00

I
Do not
Want to step so quickly
Over a beautiful line on God's palm
As I move through the earth's
Marketplace
Today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved.

Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.

I do not
Want to step so quickly
Over this sacred place on God's body
That is right beneath your
Own foot

As I
Dance with
Precious life
Today.

Hafiz

2010-11-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

click to enlarge

The sun can only be seen by the light
of the sun. The more a man or woman knows,
the greater the bewilderment, the closer
to the sun the more dazzled, until a point
is reached where one no longer is.

A mystic knows without knowledge, without
intuition or information, without contemplation
or description or revelation. Mystics
are not themselves. They do not exist
in selves. They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. I met a woman
once and asked her where love had led her.
"Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite."

Farid ud-Din Attar

2010-11-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

Because the flowers blooming
In our original home
Are everlasting,
Though springtimes may come and go
Their colors do not fade.

Dogen

2010-11-17T22:33:00.000-08:00

2010-11-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

2010-11-14T19:09:00.000-08:00

Indangsu sea, shine dark blue,
come rising as a cloudlike drumbeat.
The waters, the sailors who know the waters, may know
the dark fate of the world beyond
that lies past the path that sometimes appears,
the weeping of children born into this world,
and the sailors may know my daughter's path.
How can the waters exist without the world beyond?
Full-bodied fear
has now become the most yearned-for thing in the world,
and my daughter's whimpering stillness in the lotus bud will be such;
might love be a bright world and my eyes be plunged in utter darkness?
Daughter, already now the waters' own mother,
advance over the waters,
advance over the waters
like the mists that come dropping over the waters.
My daughter, advance and travel through every world.
Shine dark blue, Indangsu. Weep dark blue.

Ko Un

2010-11-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

Keep on knocking
'til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who's there

Rumi

2010-11-12T18:30:00.000-08:00

Ever since I saw the Beloved's face,
its lines have etched themselves on my heart.
I still nurse the wound of separation within me --
it has left me broken.

Flowing tresses may be a snare and a net:
those are pagan tresses
whose lure, like the bulbul, has sprung from the head,
bogged in the heart.

When ego is erased, duality disappears:
God's lover is himself God.
This is the heart's only home --
the heart in the lover, the lover in the heart.

O Seeker, you make a show of public worship,
then claim your share of desires.
The true lover carries within him, in secret,
the name of God.

Strange are the ways of the enlightened ones.
They weep and laugh in one breath,
scorn on the lip, grace in the heart,
profanity on the tongue, praise in the heart.

Some say God dwells in the temple,
others put him in the mosque.
What do you seek abroad, ignorant one?
Realize, oh Huma, God is within you.

Meher Baba

2010-11-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

click to enlarge

The acrid scents of autumn,
Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear
Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn
And the snore of the night in my ear.

For suddenly, flush-fallen,
All my life, in a rush
Of shedding away, has left me
Naked, exposed on the bush.

I, on the bush of the globe,
Like a newly-naked berry, shrink
Disclosed: but I also am prowling
As well in the scents that slink

Abroad: I in this naked berry
Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush;
And I in the stealthy, brindled odours
Prowling about the lush

And acrid night of autumn;
My soul, along with the rout,
Rank and treacherous, prowling,
disseminated out.

For the night, with a great breath intaken,
Has taken my spirit outside
Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness,
Like a man who has died.

At the same time I stand exposed
Here on the bush of the globe,
A newly-naked berry of flesh
For the stars to probe.

D. H. Lawrence

2010-11-11T01:50:00.000-08:00

Two beggars
sharing a meal of the food they've been given

The new moon shines intensely

Ko Un

2010-11-10T02:04:00.000-08:00

All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every invitation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
did happen in our lives, our stories
are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body -- halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never

Denise Levertov

2010-11-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

A flower is always happy because it is beautiful.
Bees sing their song of loneliness and weep.
A waterfall is busy hurrying to the ocean.
A poet is blown by the wind.

A friend without inside or outside
And a rock that is not happy or sad
Are watching the winter crescent moon
Suffering from the bitter wind.

Chogyam Trungpa

2010-11-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

Dean Buchanan

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?

Han-shan

2010-11-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

Rilke

2010-11-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

The moon is encircled by moons.
How can I hold it
In my hands?
The unseizable moon,
Glowing in the brilliance
Of a million moons,
Rocks my head
In a lunar carnival....

Moon fruits adorn
The tree of the moon,
Flashing,
Luminously flashing.

I try to see
But my eyes cannot bear;
The rays of beauty
Dazzle them.

Lalan

2010-11-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

These divine verses,
As I write
Are
The hallowed revelations
Descending
From on high
The sound of the scribe's pen
In the stillness of the night is indeed
The heavenly muse
Uttering her immortal words

Mirza Ghailib

2010-11-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

2010-11-03T03:36:00.000-07:00

They say the Sufi way
is to give one's life away.

The Sufi way is to become a sultan
on the throne of the soul.

In the station of the Path,
it is to destroy appearances.
In the station of Reality,
it is to become a guest
in the innermost palace of the heart.

They say it is to be pure of body,
the light of the Beloved.
The Sufi way is to gradually take off
the dress of earth and water.

They say it is to burn up in Love's fire--
The Sufi way is to be utterly inflamed
with the light of the Beloved.

They say it is to believe and follow the rules--
The Sufi way is to discover the rules
of the multitude of heavens.

They say it is to become a medicine for every ailment--
The Sufi way is to know and become all the secrets
of creation.

They say it is to destroy the illusion of bodies--
The Sufi way is to open the secrets of the body
with the key of the Divine Names.

O Sufi, to comprehend it, one must be it.
The one who gets lost in words
will never be their meaning.

They say it is to become the secret of God
within one's innermost heart--
The Sufi way is to read the outer signs
and know the inner meanings.

They say it is to be in wonder
at the greatness of creation--
The Sufi way is to be constantly amazed
by the nature of Reality.

They say it is to make each heart
the throne of God--
The Sufi way is to remove all else but God
from the heart's dwelling.

They say it is to watch over all humanity--
The Sufi way is to cover East and West
with every breath.

They say it is to shine as brightly as the sun--
The Sufi way is to perceive God
in every minute thing.

They say it is to be in harmony
with every kind of person--
The Sufi way is to appear
in a hundred thousand forms daily.

They say it is to be like Solomon
to the whole universe;
The Sufi way is to understand
and speak in every language.

They say it is to become an ocean
from a single drop--
The Sufi way is to make your heart a cellar
to hold the wine of the Truth.

They say it is to become a human being
illuminated with the light of Being--
The Sufi way is to destroy Being utterly
in the light of Non-Being.

They say it is to become a life
for each particle of life--
The Sufi way is to die a thousand times
and return to life each moment.

They say it is to become a master
of wisdom and eternal justice--
The Sufi way is to become an eye
looking out from every hair.

They say it is to surrender
your soul to the Beloved--
The Sufi way is to become
the soul of the Beloved.

They say it is the proof
of Muhammad's message--
The Sufi way, O Ibrahim,
is to embody God
as one's own self.

Seyh Ibahim Efendi

2010-11-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

After awhile
when the search ceases
and the door fades
into the bliss of your awakening

after awhile
when the search ceases
and the door fades
into the bliss of your awakening

after awhile
when the search ceases
and the door fades
into the bliss of your awakening

only its song remains
like a smile on your original face,
water poems
running over river stones like the lotus blossom
of time
opening your untamed heart:

gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā

2010-11-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

2010-10-30T19:00:00.003-07:00

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings - words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

Stephen King

2010-10-30T19:00:00.001-07:00

2010-10-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

2010-10-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

The self forgets itself
as a frantic dog in a glass temple
barks himself to death;
as a lion, seeing a form in the well,
leaps on the image;
as a rutting elephant sticks his tusk
in a crystal boulder.
The monkey has his fistful of sweets
and won't let go. So
from house to house
he gibbers.
Kabir says, parrot-on-a-pole:
who has caught you?

Kabir

2010-10-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

2010-10-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

I-Kung's place to practice Ch'an:
a hut in an empty grove.

Outside the door, a single pretty peak.
Before the stair, deep valleys.

Sunset confused in footprints of the rain.
Blue of the void in the shade of the court.

Look, and see the lotus blossom's purity:
know then that nothing taints this heart.

Meng Hao-jan

2010-10-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

What is called mind is a wondrous power existing in Self. It projects all thoughts. If we set aside all thoughts and see, there will be no such thing as mind remaining separate; therefore, thought itself is the form of the mind. Other than thoughts, there is no such thing as the world.

Ramana Maharshi

2010-10-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

Not a single soul lacks
a pathway to you.

There's no stone,
no flower --
not a single piece of straw --
lacking your existence.

In every particle of the world,
the moon of your love
causes the heart
of each atom to glow.

Maghhribi

2010-10-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

O August God, Beloved Father, Oversoul of the Universe, Spirit of Spirits, Friend of Friends! unravel for me the mystery of my existence. Teach me to worship Thee in breathlessness, in sleeplessness, in deathlessness.

In the stillness of my soul, possess me; may I be conscious of Thine immortal presence in and around me. I yearn to know Thee, O secondless, O True Unique!

Yogananda

2010-10-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

2010-10-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

Appreciating beauty is said to be a virtue.
To see beauty beautifully
is beautiful.

Those who have a beautiful beloved in Paradise are beautiful.
To travel the path of beauty,
is beautiful.

The sun rises from the beautiful one's eyebrows.
The beautiful one's teeth are just like pearls.
To share beautiful food at Beauty's table
is beautiful.

To linger with the beautiful one beautifully
is beautiful --

To write the beautiful name:
beautiful --

To drink with the beautiful one:
beautiful --

To kiss the hand of the beautiful one:
beautiful.

The light drips from the cheeks of the beautiful.
Honey drips from the lips of the beautiful.

Hold the hand of the beautiful beautifully.
To serve the beautiful one
is beautiful.

The eyes that perceive beauty will never suffer.
Who loves beauty may die but will never decay;

Ali Izzet never shies away from beauty --
To love beauty from the depths of one's soul
is beautiful.

Asik Ali Izzet

2010-10-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

Hair disheveled, smiling lips, sweating and tipsy,
garment torn, singing a love song, glass in hand,
picking a quarrel, chanting a spell,
yesterday at midnight she came and sat by my bed.

She lowered her head to my ear, and whispered, sad-voiced,
"My old lover, are you asleep?"
The lover for whom such a nightfarer's drink is poured
is an unbeliever of love if he does not worship wine.

Come on, hermit, do not blame those who drink to the dregs,
there was no other gift when God announced His Mastery.
The smile of the wineglass, a girl's tangled tresses,
have broken may penances, as they broke the penance of Hafiz.

Hafiz

2010-10-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

2010-10-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry
I didn't post for a couple of days;
had to pay the phone bill.

2010-10-20T02:12:00.000-07:00

The garden is breathing out the air of Paradise today,
Toward me, a friend with a sweet nature, and this wine.

It's all right for the beggar to brag that he is a King today.
His royal tent is a shadow thrown by a cloud; his throne room is a sown field.

This meadow is composing a tale of a spring day in May;
The serious man lets the future go and accepts the cash now.

Do you really believe your enemy will be faithful to you?
The candle the hermit lights goes out in the worldly church.

Make your soul strong then by feeding it the secret wine.
When we have turned to dust, this rotten world will press our dust into bricks.

My life is a black book. But don't rebuke me too much.
No person can ever read the words written on his own forehead.

When Hafez's coffin comes by, it'll be all right to follow behind.
Although he is a captive of sin, he is on his way to the Garden.

Hafiz

2010-10-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

The universe
is a kaleidoscope:
now hopelessness, now hope
now spring, now fall.
Forget its ups and downs:
do not vex yourself:
The remedy for pain
is the pain.

Sarmad

2010-10-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

If you had really wanted to be strong,
you would not have come from a woman's womb.
For messiahs are quarried from mountains
where the sturdy and strong comes from stone.

Are you not sorry to have despoiled your land
by such limitations? I am weak, don't you see;
I only had streams of milk or tears to offer,
and you were ever so much more than me.

So much ado when your birth to me was announced.
You could have been born fierce and wild from the start.
If you only needed tigers to tear you to pieces,
why did I learn gentleness as an art

by which I wove for you a soft, pure gown
without even the slightest seam
for comfort--: that's how my life has been,
which you now have turned upside down.

Rilke

I Long to Hold Some Lady

2010-10-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

I long to hold some lady
For my love is far away,
And will not come tomorrow
And was not here today.

There is no flesh so perfect
As on my lady's bone,
And yet it seems so distant
When I am all alone:

As though she were a masterpiece
In some castled town,
That pilgrims come to visit
And priests to copy down.

Alas, I cannot travel
To a love I have so deep
Or sleep too close beside
A love I want to keep.

But I long to hold some lady,
For flesh is warm and sweet.
Cold skeletons go marching
Each night beside my feet.

Leonard Cohen from The Spice Box of Earth

2010-10-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

You held a naked apple
as the sky holds the moon.
Your breath and tide
I cannot distinguish.
In waves of grace
the ivory trunks
turn to Doric columns
in the mist; natures
temple stands revealed.
The apple split in two
holds a star in its core.
Its fleshy sweetness
falls like desire
to hungry lips.
Reflection found pause
in hidden mirrors
that lent its silver
to your tongues
for want of a life of sound
and rhythm.
The music of the world
distant as two mirrors
facing each other.

2010-10-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

2010-10-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

The migrating bird
leaves no trace behind
and does not need a guide.

Dogen

2010-10-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

2010-10-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

Because the mind is

free --

Listening to the

rain

Dripping from the

eaves,

The drops

become

One with

me.

Dogen

2010-10-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

2010-10-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.

It's better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

Farid ud-Din

2010-10-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

2010-10-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.

The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.

Let my love, like sunlight, surround you
and yet give you illumined freedom.

Love remains a secret even when spoken,
for only a lover truly knows that he is loved.

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil
is no freedom for thee.

In love I pay my endless debt to thee
for what thou art.

Tagore

2010-10-08T03:26:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

Antonio Machado

2010-10-08T03:15:00.002-07:00

Saw the Cowboy Junkies last night.
They have three new cd's, the next one
is a tribute to Vic Chesnutt.
The show was great! if they
come to your town get tickets.

The Watson Twins opened the show
and they have beautiful voices and
a great sound.

2010-10-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

go where my mind will
sit when my heart's still
drink when I'm thirsty
and sing when I'm drunk
when hard times come
I find a pile of grass and sleep
the days and months are long
the world is vast
and idleness is happiness

toss off the vintage wine
use up the raw
laugh beside the earthen pot
ha, ha, ha,
hum harmonies together with this rude old mountain bonz
he has a pair of chickens
I've brought along a duck
and idleness is happiness

I've reined mind's horses
locked up my monkey heart
leapt up from red dust and evil-mannered wind
who woke me from my shady dreams of Empire?
I've left the field of honor
and wormed into a nest of joys
where idleness is happiness

he's ploughed the southern field
and slept among the eastern hills
I've been the way the world goes, often
vainly measured bygones in my mind
he's the saint
and I'm the fool
who'd argue that?

Kuan Han-Ch'ing

2010-10-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

Bed of roses

I dreamt I came to a magnificent city
whose palace was the rose, rose.
The crown and throne of the great sultan,
his garden and chambers
were the rose, rose.

Here they buy and sell but roses
and the roses are the scales they use,
Weighing roses with more roses,
the marketplace and bazaar
are all roses, rose.

The white rose and the red rose
grew coupled in one garden.
Their faces turn as one toward the thorn.
Both thorn and blossom
are the rose, rose.

Soil is the rose and stone is the rose,
withered is the rose, fresh is the rose.
Within the Lord's private gardens
both slender cypress and old maple
are the rose, rose.

The rose is turning the waterwheel
and gets ground between the stones.
The wheel turns round as the water flows.
Its power and its stillness
are the rose, rose.

From the rose a tent appears
filled with an offering of everything.
Its gatekeepers are the holy prophets.
The bread and the wine they pour
are the rose, rose.

Oh Ummi Sinan, heed the mystery
of the sorrow of nightingale and rose.
Every cry of the forlorn nightingale
is for the rose, the rose.

Ummi Sinan

2010-10-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

"Those
who practice
only in
silence/tranquility,

cannot

establish

their [internal]

freedom
when entering

into activity.

When
they
engage
into
worldly activities,
their
usual
satori (enlightenment)
will eventually
disappear
without
any
trace."

Hakuinji

2010-10-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

To anyone and everyone who will believe me: America is still a colony of Great Britain!

Now, to those who are still reading this, I have my sources as to why I know that America is still controlled by Britain! See, England never truly recognized America as a sovereign nation, oh no. Every election is overseen by the British government. Every elected official reports directly to the current King/Queen of England! Nothing has changed at all in the past 300 years. Watch the proof unfold before your very eyes as I uncover unsettling, but true, similarities!

Ever notice how every President of the United States, save for one, has been a white Protestant male, just like the Prime Ministers of England! This is hardly a coincidence! But, there are more disturbing similarities! There is not only a system of checks and balances in "American" government, but also in English government! Normally, different countries have a different form of government, like China and Canada.

Ever think about the Senate? Note how similar it is to the House of Lords? Let me break it down like this:

The Senate is more powerful than the House of Representatives.
The House of Lords is the upper house and has less people, and the House of Commons, which is the lower house and has more people, just like the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively.
The House of Lords has more sway than the House of Commons.

Don't get it yet? Well, dear reader, read on, and I shall show you the truth...

Uncycolpedia

2010-10-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

2010-10-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

a voice out of this world
calls on our souls
not to wait any more
get ready to move
to the original home

your real home
your real birth place
is up here with the heavens
let your soul take a flight
like a happy phoenix

you've been tied up
your feet in the mud
your body roped to a log
break loose your ties
get ready for the final flight

make your last journey
from this strange world
soar for the heights
where there is no more
separation of you and your home

God has created
your wings not to be dormant
as long as you are alive
you must try more and more
to use your wings to show you're alive

these wings of yours
are filled with quests and hopes
if they are not used
they will wither away
they will soon decay

you may not like
what I'm going to tell you
you are stuck
now you must seek
nothing but the source

Rumi

2010-10-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

2010-10-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

What earth is this
so in want of you
they rise up on high
to seek you in heaven?

Look at them staring
at you
right before their eyes,
unseeing, unseeing, blind.
. . .

I was patient,
but can the heart
be patient of
its heart?

My spirit and yours
blend together
whether we are near one another
or far away.

I am you,
you,
my being,
end of my desire,

The most intimate of secret thoughts
enveloped
and fixed along the horizon
in folds of light.

How? The "how" is known
along the outside,
while the interior of beyond
to and for the heart of being.

Creatures perish
in the darkened
blind of quest,
knowing intimations.

Guessing and dreaming
they pursue the real,
faces turned toward the sky
whispering secrets to the heavens.

While the lord remains among them
in every turn of time
abiding in their every condition
every instant.

Never without him, they,
not for the blink of an eye --
if only they knew!
nor he for a moment without them.

Mansur al-Hallaj

2010-10-01T19:15:00.001-07:00

2010-10-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.

Hakuin

2010-09-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Lost in myself
I reappeared
I know not where
a drop that rose
from the sea and fell
and dissolved again;
a shadow
that stretched itself out
at dawn,
when the sun
reached noon
I disappeared.
I have no news
of my coming
or passing away--
the whole thing
happened quicker
than a breath;
ask no questions
of the moth.
In the candle flame
of his face
I have forgotten
all the answers.
In the way of love
there must be knowledge
and ignorance
so I have become
both a dullard
and a sage;
one must be
an eye and yet
not see
so I am blind
and yet I still
perceive,
Dust
be on my head
if I can say
where I
in bewilderment
have wandered:
Attar
watched his heart
transcend both worlds
and under its shadow
now is gone mad
with love.

Attar

2010-09-30T04:19:00.000-07:00

He's there among the scented trees,
playing the notes he has taught you.
Too late for embarrassment, shy doe
nibbling at the forest's edge,
shawled in deep blue shadows.
He's calling you. The flower of your soul
is opening, little deer.
The river of scent will lead you
deep into the trees where he waits.
The bihanga also plays tonight --
do you hear his more distant flute?
Black bees carry the moon's luster
from flower to flower.
The rest of the grove will bloom tonight, I think.
How he looks at you, young animal.
He shames the moon with his own dark light.

Let's bow down before the young Lord,
the deep blue flowers at his feet.

Tagore

2010-09-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

You went away but remained in me
And thus became my peace and happiness.

In separation, separation left me
And I witnessed the Unknown.

You were the hidden secret of my longing,
Hidden deep within my conscience deeper than a dream.

You were my true friend in the day
And in darkness my companion.

Mansur al-Hallaj

2010-09-28T02:32:00.000-07:00

Li-Young, don't feel lonely
when you look up
into great night and find
yourself the far face peering
hugely out from between
a star and a star. All that space
the nighthawk plunges through,
homing, all that distance beyond embrace,
what is it but your own infinity.

And don't be afraid
when, eyes closed, you look inside you
and find night is both
the silence tolling after stars
and the final word
that founds all beginning, find night,

abyss and shuttle,
a finished cloth
frayed by the years, then gathered
in the songs and games
mothers teach their children.

Look again
and find yourself changed
and changing, now the bewildered honey
fallen into your own hands,
now the immaculate fruit born of hunger.
Now the unequaled perfume of your dying.
And time? Time is the salty wake
of your stunned entrance upon
no name.

Li-Young Lee

2010-09-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love
ever stop opening
if you love me,
you won't just die once
in every moment
you will die into me
to be reborn

Into this new love, die
your way begins
on the other side
become the sky
take an axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into color
do it now

Rumi

2010-09-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age.
The cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,
and the earth acted as a shy
girl, like me.

Divine light entered my heart from His love
that did never fully wane,

though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person's
faith can at times flicker,

for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind's ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace.

I have seen what you want;
it is there,

a Beloved of infinite
tenderness.

Hafiz

2010-09-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

John Lautermilch

A bare impersonal hush is now my mind,
A world of sight clear and inimitable,
A volume of silence by a Godhead signed,
A greatness pure, virgin of will.

Once on its pages Ignorance could write
In a scribble of intellect the blind guess of Time
And cast gleam-messages of ephemeral light,
A food for souls that wander on Nature's rim.

But now I listen to a greater Word
Born from the mute unseen omniscient Ray:
The Voice that only Silence's ear has heard
Leaps missioned from an eternal glory of Day.

All turns from a wideness and unbroken peace
To a tumult of joy in a sea of wide release.

Aurobindo

2010-09-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

I
Against the flowering mountain,
the wide sea surges.
The comb of my honeybees
has gathered grains of salt.

II
Against the black water.
Scent of sea and jasmine.
Malaga night.

III
Spring has come.
No one knows what has happened.

IV
Spring has come.
White hallelujahs
from the brambles in flower!

V
Full moon, full moon,
so pregnant, so round.
This serene March night,
honeycomb of light
carved by white bees!

VI
Castille night;
the song is said,
or, better, unsaid.
When all sleep
I'll go to the window.

Antonio Machado

2010-09-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

2010-09-22T22:29:00.001-07:00

2010-09-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

"LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us."

TERENCE MCKENNA

2010-09-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

2010-09-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

In the Beginning

When the King conceived ordaining
He engraved engravings in the luster on high.
A blinding spark flashed
within the Concealed of the Concealed
from the mystery of the Infinite,
a cluster of vapor in formlessness,
set in a ring,
not white, not black, not red, not green,
no color at all.
When a band spanned, it yielded radiant colors.
Deep within the spark gushed a flow
imbuing colors below,
concealed within the concealed of the mystery of the Infinite.
The flow broke through and did not break through its aura.
It was not known at all
until, under the impact of breaking through,
one high and hidden point shone.
Beyond that point, nothing is known.
So it is called Beginning,
the first command of all.

"The enlightened will shine like the zohar of the sky,
and those who make the masses righteous
will shine like the stars forever and ever"
(Daniel 12:3)

Zohar, Concealed of the Concealed, struck its aura.
The aura touched and did not touch this point.
Then this Beginning emanated
and made itself a palace for its glory and its praise.
There it sowed the seed of holiness
to give birth
for the benefit of the universe.
The secret is:
"Her stock is a holy seed"
(Isaiah 6:13)

Zohar, sowing a seed for its glory
like the seed of fine purple silk.
The silkworm wraps itself within and makes itself a palace.
This palace is its praise and a benefit to all.

With the Beginning
the Concealed One who is not known created the palace.
This palace is called Elohim.
The secret is:
"With Beginning, ____________ created Elohim"
(Genesis 1:1).

Zohar

2010-09-18T17:52:00.001-07:00