Monday, December 28, 2015

By suffering's presence




"It is by suffering’s presence that we know there is something we need to address.”

~ Jane Hirschfield
Ten Windows

Monday, December 7, 2015

No Matter Where You Stay by Chatral Rinpoche

Thomas Merton and Chatral Rinpoche in Darjeeling, 1968

"No matter where you stay -- be it a busy place or a solitary retreat --
The only things that you need to conquer are mind’s five poisons*
And your own true enemies, the eight wordly concerns**, nothing else,
Whether it is by avoiding, transforming,
taking them as the path or looking into their very essence,
Whichever method is best suited to your own capacity."

~ Chatral Rinpoche

.
* Ignorance, greed, hatred, jealousy, and pride.
** Loss and gain, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, disrepute and fame.

How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry


[This is also excellent advice for how to pray ~ George]


How To Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
.