Stillness. A word. An experience. Perhaps marked by escaping everything not still. How do we come to stillness inside? Breathing…feeling…being…listening…
This Only
A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.
Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,
When snow first fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.
Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature;
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through…
- from the Tao Te Ching, trans. STEPHEN MITCHELL -
KINDNESS
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
“Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion; to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.”
“The center clears.
Knowing comes:
The body is not singular like a corpse,
but singular like a salt grain
still in the side of the mountain.”
“Spring-water in the green creek is clear
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white
Silent knowledge—the spirit is enlightened of itself
Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.”
from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems
“Now I’m aware that I alone am in the vast
openness
of the sea
And cause the sea to be the sea.
Just swim.
Just swim.
Go on with your story.”
“It is just simple attention that allows us to truly listen to the sound of the bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched.”
Exploring the inner dimensions of body, breath, mind and spirit...
