Darkness

has been given as

a nightshirt to sleep in.

Remember how human beings

were composed from water and dust

for blood and flesh with oily resins heated

in fire to make a skeleton. Then the soul, the divine

light, was breathed into human shapes. The work now is

to help our bodies become pure light. It may look like

this is not happening. But in a cocoon every bit

of worm-dissolving slime becomes silk.

As we take in light, each part

of us turns to

silk.

 

 

Let change —

even traumatic upheaval —

remind you that anything is possible.

When the dark cloud of chaos hangs

over you, let possibility be

the silver lining.

 

Maggie Smith

 

💔🎶🌞

 

The

clear wind

and the bright moon

demonstrate the

great truth.

 

Kusan Sunim

 

 

The

way of love is

not a subtle argument.

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles of their

freedom. How do they learn that?

They fall, and falling,

they’re given

wings.

 

Rumi

 

 

By even speaking a phrase to you,

I have already doused you with dirty water.

It would be even worse for me to put a twinkle in my eye

and raise my eyebrow to you, or rap on the meditation seat

or hold up a whisk, or demand, “What is this?”

As for shouting and hitting, it’s obvious

that this is just a pile of bones

on level ground.

 

There are also the type

who don’t know good from bad and

ask questions about Buddha and Dharma and Zen

and the Tao. They ask to be helped, they beg to be received,

they seek knowledge and sayings and theories relating to

the Buddhist teaching and to transcending the world

and to accommodating the world. This is washing

dirt in mud and washing mud in dirt —

when will they ever manage

to clear it away?

 

Yuanwu

 

Remember, what

is important in practice

is perseverance and

consistency.

 

Yuanwu