carry your heart like a life-giving sun


 

You

could become a

great horseman and help

to free yourself and this world though

only if you and prayer become sweet lovers.

It is a naive man who thinks we are not engaged in a

fierce battle, for I see and hear brave foot soldiers

all around me going mad, falling on the ground

in excruciating pain. You could become a

victorious horseman and carry your

heart through this world like a

life-giving sun though only

if you and God become

sweet lovers.

 

Hafiz

 

just breathe emptiness

dragonfly kaya cait

kaya satori

 

The

best effort 

one can make is the 

gentlest effort: wei wu wei

Quietly, persistently direct the 

mind toward emptiness. When 

all thoughts and ideas have 

dissipated, then make no 

further effort. Just 

breathe. 

 

This

is the only

practice required of a 

human, the best one, the one 

that perfectly purifies

our lives.

 

Wei wu Wei Ching, Hexagram 9

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the mad farmer liberation front


 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay.  Want more 

of everything ready-made.  Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery 

any more.  Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you.  When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

 

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute.  Love the Lord.

Love the world.  Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag.  Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot 

understand.  Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

 

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium.  Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into mold.

Call that profit.  Prophesy such returns.

 

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion – put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering 

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world.  Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable.  Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

 

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade.  Rest your head

in her lap.  Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it.  Leave it as a sign 

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go.  Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary, 

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

 

Wendell Berry

 

bring me the rhinoceros


 

One day 

Yanguan called to his assistant,

“Bring me the rhinoceros fan.”The assistant said,

“It is broken.” Yanguan said, “In that case,

bring me the rhinoceros.”

 

Why,

sometimes I’ve believed

as many as six impossible things

before breakfast.

 

The Red Queen

 

We sometimes think

of consciousness as a lamp, making

a golden cone of light on the surface of a desk.

Outside the yellow circle everything is dark and unknown.

The usual way of approaching things is to try to extend the yellow

circle into the darkness. Or perhaps to drag objects in from the dark.

That is working out of what you can conceive of, the bright area of what

you already know. This koan takes things the other way. Here you depend on

what is unknown and inconceivable to sustain you. Most of life is inconceivable;

even your left hand can’t be fully conceived of though it can be very useful.

And if you try hard to conceive of what your hand does, it won’t play

the piano very well. The inconceivable is the source of all that

comes into being. This koan is not about making what is

unknown, known. Instead it as exercise in relying on

and making friends with the inconceivable,

using a casual event to start an

exploration into the

unlit realms.

 

John Tarrant