An Arabic Poem

                                      "Fill life with yourself, do not let boredom

smash it on the rocks of oblivion.

Take any old moment, and transform it

into a special moment.

Scent your every gesture

with the fragrance of attention.

And let the light of the memory of You

reflect in your eyes.

And then, when you speak, do not throw

your words away like rotten fruit,

but say them with the same awareness

as a wizard casting spells.

When you move,

do so without dragging your weight,

crushed by the rhythm of automatic action.

Compose your body and understand

that even simply caressing someone

can become a miracle if it is generated

by the elegance of attention.

Become a dam to all those thoughts

that herald problems and not solutions.

Thought is food, and the mind is a mouth.

Remove the filth that marks your face,

cleanse your lips with the water of memory,

and feed only on flowers and pomegranates.

Stop making life an escape from fear.

Sit still and silent until the watchdog

of the emotions allows you to pass.

Realize that your every word,

action, thought and emotion

is a form of the infinite specter,

a wave arising from the centre of the lake,

a distant echo that forever reverberates

among the eternal resounding rocks."

Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Beauty Captured

"My soul is a candle that burned away the veil; 

only the glorious duties of light I now have."  

"I did not have to ask my heart what it wanted,

because of all the desires I have ever known 

just one did I cling to

for it was the essence of all desire:

to hold beauty in my soul's arms."

~ St. John of the Cross

Traveling Far Without Going Far From Home

This is a beautiful article, and an exhibit perhaps worth the "pilgrimage" to New York to see ... 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/arts/design/19asian.html

... honoring the developing Buddha in us all, the importance of pilgrimage  and the art of "traveling far without going far from home."

Yesterday I decided to make the "aim" to slow my life down ... Today I already see how leaving time allows something higher to enter. This article, which I relished reading in some of that reclaimed time, reminded me that we need to journey far from home on a regular basis, if only in the privacy of our mind and heart. There is no room for this developing pilgrimage when we are caught in a whirlwind of tasks, plans, and relentless responsibilities. We become what we feed ourselves, as someone very wise once said, we need to leave time to feed the soul.


Jennie

Lao Tsu

She Stays in the Center


After talking for awhile, 
it is natural to become silent.


The windstorm does not last all morning. 
Heavy rains do not fall all day.


Movement and stillness alternate. 
Silence and sound follow each other.


Only human beings try to make things last forever. 
In so doing, they precipitate change.


Trying to hold onto their riches,
they lose them.


Trying to hold onto their successes,
they unexpectedly fail.


Trying to keep their virtue perfect,
their desires take them by surprise.


The Taoist knows 
that everything that happens has a purpose.


So when something comes, she accepts it.
When it leaves, she lets it go.


She learns to trust life,
so life does not abuse her.


Even when the winds of change 
are whirling around her,


she stays in the center,
in the eye of the hurricane,


where everything is quiet
and completely still.

Rodney Collin

When true self-remembering comes, one does not want to alter oneself; 

one somehow rises above their weaknesses and one's own. 

There can be no blame anywhere. 

One swallows what is, and becomes free.

Rainer Maria Rilke

... I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can,  to have patience with everything unresolved  in your heart and to try to love the questions  themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don't search for the answers, which could not be  given to you now, because you would not be able  to live them. And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday  far in the future, you will gradually,  without even noticing it, live your way  into the answer. --from Letters to a Young Poet (1903)

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

This is love: 

To fly toward a secret sky.

To cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. 

First to let go of life. 

Finally, to take a step without feet.

Christina G. Rossetti

“Love came down at Christmas; 

love all lovely, love divine; 

love was born at Christmas, 

stars and angels gave the sign.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"Love alone

can unite living beings

so as to complete and fulfill them,

for it alone joins them

by what is deepest in themselves."

-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Dante

The love of God, unutterable and perfect 
Flows into a pure soul 

The way that light rushes into a transparent object.

The more love that it finds, the more it gives itself
So that as we grow clear and open,
The more complete the joy of heaven is.

And the more souls that resonate together,

The greater the intensity of their love

And, mirror like, each soul reflects the other.

-- Dante

Marcus Aurelius

" When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, 

revert at once to yourself, 

and don't loose the rhythm more than you can help.

You'll have a better grasp of the harmony 

if you keep on going back to it."

-- Marcus Aurelius

Rodney Collin

Sometimes, by letting go.

we allow some grace to enter

by another channel,

which all our mental efforts

have hitherto kept out.

Stillness is a quality of the heart.

We must not expect to find it

among the doubts of the mind.

It is the mind which must make way for it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; 
what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Marsilio Ficino

"These celestial bodies are not to be sought by us

 outside in some other place;

 for the heavens in their entirety are within us,

 in whom the light of life

 and the origin of heaven dwell."


-- Marsilio Ficino

Rumi

"Open a window towards God and breathe.

Delight yourself

with what comes through that opening.

The work of love is to create a window in the heart,

for the breast is illuminated

by the beauty of the Beloved."

Leonardo da Vinci

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,

for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Hafez

WE HAVE NOT COME TO TAKE PRISONERS

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and Light!

William Blake

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, 

every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things 

thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do not go where the path may lead,

 go instead where there is no path

 and leave a trail."