“Everybody can use more love. Do not take offense if people are rude or unkind or seem like they are trying to hurt your feelings. You cannot know what is happening with them. Send them love no matter how they act. It will come back to you many times over as increased love in your life.”
“Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world… Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.”
~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
There is a fundamental unity beneath this surface of diversity. What we see is but an illusion; at the molecular level, all things are connected.
△Sacred Geometry
Reflection on leaving the household
I came to the mountain
to avoid hearing
the sound of waves.
Lonesome now in another way –
wind in the the pine forest.
Ryokan, from Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan, Kazuaki Tanahashi
Ryokan is likely my favourite in the imposing genre of Zen Master poets. Kaz Tanahashi offers a delightful exploration of his life and, more delectably, his art. This is a companion book to carry with you and dip into as the moment arises.
There is the simple in Ryokan’s words, a feature that likely gave rise, along with his own demeanor, to the sobriquet of “The Zen Fool.” And perhaps that is fitting because to surrender all manner of contact, comfort, and conventionality would require adopting or cultivating a simple-mindedness about what matters. Like the Divine Fool Nasreddin before him, Ryokan challenges me to…
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The Giving of Meaning is entirely an internal process. Entirely.
Poetry. Does it …for me and I’m posting one of the poems that I love, because it is so full of wisdom, of beauty, of love and loss and redemption, and above all, a reclamation of oneself. I hope you enjoy it, too.
I’ve been hinting at this post for a quite a few days now, and finally I think I’m ready to start typing. I’ve been running into a serious problem in my daily life lately, and for a while I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Now I know. Empathy is dying. The actual concept of empathy seems to be seeping out of people day by day, and every time I talk to someone about something, anything, the proof of its slow and subtle demise is even more prominent to me.
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There is a saying: “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” This is true. But for any of us on the side of Buddha mind or Christ consciousness suffering is also inevitable. So when it arises we have a choice. Resistance, or acceptance. Resisting suffering is like falling into cold water, not knowing how to swim, and flailing wildly to keep from drowning. The fear only accelerates your drowning. If you accept that you are in the water, allow yourself to experience the wet seeping into every pore, you will find that you are floating after all. As long as death has not touched you yet, one way or another you will find your buoyancy.
Optimist 