May26

Listening

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Listening

Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don’t you? You hear the far off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds; which means really that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change which comes without your volition, without your asking; and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – The Book of Life

May24

The Guesthouse

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The Guesthouse

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jalalud’din Rumi – The Essential Rumi – The Guesthouse

May23

If a tree has no leaves nor branches can you still call it a tree?

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If a tree has no leaves nor branches can you still call it a tree?

As it stands, the oak tree is an oak tree. If, however, we were to pluck out all of the leaves of this oak tree, would it still be a tree? Most people would definitely say yes. Trees lose their leaves in the winter all the time yet still remain trees. Suppose now that we were to saw off a few branches. Would our tree still remain a tree? Most people, again, would respond in the affirmative. We have all seen trees without a few branches. But let us say that we were to take another step and cut off all of the branches. What would we be left with? Now the response we would most likely get would be a trunk on a root, definitely not a tree. The point of this analogy is to illustrate that once any existent is subjected to thorough analysis, we soon realise that its nature is not fixed and determinate. In the case of the tree, this becomes clear when we ask: exactly when in our process of sawing off the branches does the tree stop being a tree? The difficulty in pin-pointing a universal essence which we can unequivocally identify as “treeness” is one reason for believing there is no such essence to begin with.

— Sacred Web (Volume 23, p. 51 – Atif Khalil – Emptiness, Identity and Interpenetration in Hua-yen Buddhism

May22

Knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge

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Knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge

Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge. But you can know what is not true, which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you do not know that you are free to investigate. And there can be no salvation without investigation, because non-investigation is the main cause of bondage.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj – I Am That (p. 457)

May20

Never Blame

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Never Blame

If you fall into a hole,
you don’t poke out your eyes
because they have failed you.
Why not tolerate other’s faults as well?
When you hurt your hand
you don’t reproach it,
you apply medicine and nurse it with care.
So too should we care for others
never blaming them for their faults.

— Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart – Never Blame

May19

Lose yourself as lovers lose themselves

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Lose yourself as lovers lose themselves

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.

It’s better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don’t be dead or asleep or awake.
Don’t be anything.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you’ll be that.

— Attar – Looking for your own face – The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia

May18

I have learned so much

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I have learned so much

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even a pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.

— Hafiz – The Gift – I have learned so much

May17

The one who tastes, knows; the one who explains, lies.

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The one who tastes, knows; the one who explains, lies.

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?

— Rabia al Basri – Reality