Seeing things differently

"I shall walk daily
Along that tremulous meridian
And learn...........
I shall lay my ear
To the pulse-beat of the planet
And know........
I shall dwell
Within the inner and outer together
And see.............
That my end is my beginning,
That all things are connected "
-- Janet Weight Reed

Read the rest of Janet's poem here and see her paintings:

http://janetweightreed10.blog.co.uk/


"

Certainty

The words of this poem really resonated with me this morning. For the past six weeks I have been living in uncertainty regrading an issue that still has not been resolved. It has not been easy for me to live with the not knowing and endless questions of " what if ....?"

I have come to the point where i have realised the insanity of worrying about something that may or may not happen; the insanity of fearful thoughts that prevent me from enjoying this holy instant to the full.

No, it is time to stop waiting for the storm to pass and time to learn to dance in the rain !

It is true that since everything is always changing can we ever be certain of anything ?

I shall meditate on " Certainty confines " .

There is freedom in chaos.

We often think of change as change for the worse, but is it so ?
Things can change in an instant.
Things can change for the better, and better that we ever dared imagine.


Finally, I remind myself " THIS IS NOT THE TRUTH "

CERTAINTY

Certainty undermines one's power, and turns happiness
into a long shot. Certainty confines.

Dears, there is nothing in your life that will
not change - especially your ideas of God.

Look what the insanity of righteous knowledge can do:
crusade and maim thousands
in wanting to convert that which
is already gold
into gold.

Certainty can become an illness
that creates hate and
greed.

God once said to Tuka,

"Even I am ever changing -
I am ever beyond
Myself,

what I may have once put my seal upon,
may no longer be
the greatest
Truth."

~ Tukaram ~

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, versions by Daniel Ladinsky)

Web version: www.panhala. net/Archive/ Certainty. html

Meditation , the monkey mind and Buddha's dogs

This wonderful poem is a Panhala posting ( see details below) and reflects my own experiences of retreats and meditation. Beautifully honest too.

Buddha's Dogs

I'm at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watching
my mind with my mind,
and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair,
and it's not even noon yet.

In the morning session, I learned to count my thoughts, ten in
on minute, and the longest
was to leave and go to San Anselmo and shop, then find an outdoor cafe and order a glass

of Sancerre, smoked trout with roasted potatoes and baby
carrots and a bowl of gazpacho.
But I stayed and learned to name my thoughts, so far they are:
wanting, wanting, wanting,

wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, judgment,
sadness. Don't identify with your
thoughts, the teacher says, you are not your personality, not your
ego-identification,

then he bangs the gong for lunch. Whoever, whatever I am is
given instruction
in the walking meditation and the eating meditation and walks
outside with the other

meditators, and we wobble across the lake like The Night of the

Living Dead.
I meditate slowly, falling over a few times because I kept my
foot in the air too long,

towards a bench, sit slowly down, and slowly eat my sandwich,
noticing the bread,
(sourdough), noticing the taste, (tuna, sourdough), noticing
the smell, (sourdough, tuna),

thanking the sourdough, the tuna, the ocean, the boat, the
fisherman, the field, the grain,
the farmer, the Saran Wrap that kept this food fresh for this
body made of food and desire

and the hope of getting through the rest of this day without
dying of boredom.
Sun then cloud then sun. I notice a maple leaf on my sandwich.
It seems awfully large.

Slowly brushing it away, I feel so sad I can hardly stand it, so I
name my thoughts; they are:
sadness about my mother, judgment about my father, wanting
the child I never had.

I notice I've been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around
the same park most of my life,
notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass. The gong sounds,
and back in the hall.

I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep. The
Buddha in my dream is me,
surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands.
I wake up

for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying,never put
anyone out of your heart,
and the heart opens and knows it won't last and will have to
open again and again,

chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud
then sun.

~ Susan Browne ~

(Buddha's Dogs)

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To unsubscribe from Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link

(left button to play, right button to save)

For the Unknown Self

For the Unknown Self

So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbour,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

The highest good is like water.

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.

~ Tao Te Ching ~

(Translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

Delmore:The Fear,The River,The Mind,

THE MIND IS AN ANCIENT AND FAMOUS CAPITAL..By Delmore Schwartz

The mind is a city like London,
Smoky and populous: it is a capital
Like Rome, ruined and eternal,
Marked by the monuments which no one
Now remembers.
For the mind, like Rome, contains
Catacombs, aqueducts, amphitheatres, palaces,
Churches and equestrian statues, fallen, broken or soiled.
The mind possesses and is possessed by all the ruins
Of every haunted, hunted generation’s celebration.

"Call us what you will: we are made such by love."
We are such studs as dreams are made on, and
Our little lives are ruled by the gods, by
Pan, Piping of all, seeking to grasp or grasping
All of the grapes; and by the bow-and-arrow god,
Cupid, piercing the heart through, suddenly and forever.

Dusk we are, to dusk returning, after the burbing,
After the gold fall, the fallen ash, the bronze,
Scattered and rotten, after the white null statues which
Are winter, sleep, and nothingness: when
Will the houselights of the universe
Light up and blaze?
For it is not the sea
Which murmurs in a shell,
And it is not only heart, at harp o’clock,
It is the dread terror of the uncontrollable
Horses of the apocalypse, running in wild dread
Toward Arcturus—and returning as suddenly ...