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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Dogen

Because the mind is

free --

Listening to the

rain

Dripping from the

eaves,

The drops

become

One with

me.



Dogen

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

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

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

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.

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

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

"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

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:

1. The Senate is more powerful than the House of Representatives.
2. 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.
3. 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

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

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

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