Sonnet by Feng Chih

We stand together on top of a towering mountain
Transforming ourselves into the immense sweep of view,
Into the unlimited plain in front of us,
And into the footpaths crisscrossing the plain.

Which road, which river is unconnected, and
Which wind, which cloud is without its response?
The waters and hills we've traversed
Have all been merged in our lives.

Our births, our growth, and our sorrows
Are the lone pine standing on a mountain,
Are the dense fog blanketing a city.

We follow the blowing wind and the flowing water
To become the crisscrossing paths on the plain,
To become the lives of the travelers on the paths.


Translated by Kai-yu Hsu.

Trivia

When my head is a turmoil of trivia
   I vow with all beings
to relax in good-humored patience
as I would with a mischievous child.

~ Robert Aitken, The Dragon Who Never Sleeps

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandberg

Time says hush.
By the gong of time you live.
Listen and you hear time saying you were silent
long before you came to life and you will
again be silent long after you leave it,
why not be a little silent now?
Hush yourself, noisy little man.

Time hushes all.
The gong of time rang for you to come out of a
hush and you were born.
The gong of time will ring for you to go back to
the same hush you came from.
Winners and losers, the weak and the strong, those
who say little and try to say it well, and
those who babble and prattle their lives away,
Time hushes all.

Giving up means remaining

Giving up attachment to the world does not mean that you set yourself apart from it. Generating a desire for others to be happy increases your humanity. As you become less attached to the world, you become more humane. As the very purpose of spiritual practice is to help others, you must remain in society.

~ Dalai Lama 

Simple insight practice

Look at any experience as it arises, whether it's an "internal" sensation, feeling, or thought, or an "external" object. Just look into it, and recognize it as a sensation, feeling, thought, or perception. 

Then look at what is aware of that experience. Just look into the awareness, recognizing it as awareness. 

Try going back and forth, from the experience to the awareness, back and forth, with curiosity, to know clearly the nature of experience and awareness.