“We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
~ Hafiz, from ‘We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners’, ‘The Gift’, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
(Photo: ‘Take to the Sky’ by Alex Greenshpun)
all which isn’t singing is mere talking
and all talking’s talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)
gush to it as deity or devil
—toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles
name it cruel fair or blessed evil—
it is you(ne i)nobody else
drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing
—you are deafened every mother’s son—
all is merely talk which isn’t singing
and all talking’s to oneself alone
but the very song of(as mountains
feel and lovers)singing is silence
~e.e. Cummings
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
‘Daughter of the Wind’ by Alex Greenshpun
“These flowers are like the pleasures of the world.” ~W. Shakespeare
(Photo: ‘Rain’s Ephemeral Crown’ by Alex Greenshpun)
—- —- —-
sentences
by no means mention
what’s really
on your mind
nothing is
on my mind
don’t mention
it
—-
whatever you have
to say
will get itself
said
don’t worry
who worries?
that’s all i’m
telling
you:
don’t
—-
you go out
to the edge
of the universe,
it’ll still be
on your
mind
nothing
is
it’ll still
be there
—-
you don’t have to
try to remember
it
the fact is, you
can’t forget
forget what?
the nothing.
whatever it
is
-Robert Lax, from the journal A, p. 36
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
Be Still, it is the wind that sings
I am a pipe the wind blows through,
Be still, it is the wind that sings.
The course of my life and the things that I do
And the seeming false and the seeming true
Are the tune of the wind that neither knows
Good and ill, nor joys and woes.
But the ultimate awe is deeper yet
Than song or pipe or storm;
For pipe and tune are the formless wind
That seemed for a while to take form.
And words are good to escape from words
And strife to escape from strife,
But silence drinks in all the waves
Of song and death and life
~Arthur Osborne
I like to wash,
the dust of this world
In the droplets of dew.
~Matsuo Basho
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness
and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:
as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious
~Lisel Mueller
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
~Ryokan
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
O Rama, two aspects of the “heart” are spoken of here: one is acceptable and the other is to be ignored. The heart that is part of this physical body and is located in one part of the body may be ignored!
The heart which is acceptable is of the nature of pure consciousness. It is both inside and outside and it is neither inside nor outside. This is the principal heart and in it is reflected everything which is in the universe, and it is the treasure-house of all wealth.
Consciousness alone is the heart of all beings, not the piece of flesh which people call the heart!
~Yoga Vasistha
(Photo: alexgreenshpun.com)
Amazing works by Michael Grab.
Through witnessing what this art has done for me personally over years of practice, my vision grows more and more to encourage others to seek their own “still-point” or inner silence. No-one but YOU is required to experience your divine nature. This art allows one to freely be themselves, manifesting their own particular vibrations into a 3D world. Stone balance teaches the practitioner lessons through silence. The inner silence that one cultivates through balancing (or other meditative practice) is a foundation to realizing that each of us are as much one another as we ARE our entire universe. One gigantic symphony. and to apply a framework of “balance” to the earth-organism will be infinitely beneficial for the well-being of our children, as well as the diversity of life we co-exist with.
Everything is contained in these petals and in the space between them…
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
~William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
(Photo: Infinity by Alex Greenshpun)
This amazing photo of Arunachala was taken by Reinhard Jung, on November 7th, 2012, a little before dawn.
A cat, when it walks—did you ever see a cat making an aesthetic mistake. Did you ever see a badly formed cloud? Were the stars ever mis-arranged? When you watch the foam breaking on the seashore, did it ever make a bad pattern? Never. And yet we think in what we do, we make mistakes. And we’re worried about that. So there came this point in human evolution when we lost our innocence. When we lost this thing that the cats and the flowers have, and had to think about it, and had to purposely arrange and discipline and push our lives around in accordance with foresight and words and systems of symbols, accountancy, calculation and so on, and then we worry. Once you start thinking about things, you worry as to if you thought enough. Did you really take all the details into consideration? Was every fact properly reviewed? And by Jove, the more you think about it, the more you realize you really couldn’t take everything into consideration, because all the variables in every decision are incalculable, so you get anxiety. And this, though, also, is the price you pay for knowing that you know. For being able to think about thinking, being able to feel about feeling. And so you’re in this funny position.
~Alan Watts (The Nature of Consciousness)
A wonderful photo by Francois Rebeaudeau
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