die and stay dead and go on living
For those who
are ready, the door to
the deathless state is open.
You that have ears, give up
the conditions that bind
you, and enter in.
Posts Tagged → beauty
quiet strength insures success
An
unavoidable time of adversity.
Quiet strength insures a
later success.
It is a time
of oppression and exhaustion.
None of us escapes such moments; they are simply
a part of living. By meeting them in the correct spirit and
cheerfully bending instead of breaking, you weather
the adversity and meet with success
at a later time.
Inferior elements,
either in one’s self, another,
or the larger world, interfere now to
restrain the superior person. It is foolish to fight
against the restraint; success is simply not possible now.
Rid yourself of the desire to progress and return
to neutrality and acceptance. The stubborn
pursuit of results will bring
misfortune.
With others,
quietness and equanimity are
the watchwords of the moment. Say little,
and say it gently. A similar reticence and gentleness
should be applied to yourself. Do not lapse into
impatience or mistrust of the Deity. Accept
that the Creative often works in a way
that we cannot see or
understand.
A feeling of
despair or depression is a sign
that you are holding a false belief.
To perpetuate an untruth about yourself,
another, or the Sage is to block your own
happiness. Root out and remove any
idea or attitude which
causes negative
feelings.
By opening
your mind, quieting your heart,
and calmly holding to proper principles,
you make it possible for the Creative
to eliminate the oppression
that currently
exists.
from The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Hexagram 47, K’un / Oppression (Exhaustion)
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I was like an old tree until we met
stilted koans are all monks have
Ikkyü also had a hermitage in Kyoto which he called Katsuroan (Blind Donkey Hermitage), and often stayed at Daitokuji. But increasingly, to the point of anguish, he became disgusted with worldly carryings on at the main temple, shuddering at the…frantic hustling for donations:
Yoso hangs up ladles baskets useless donations in the temple
my style’s a straw raincoat strolls by rivers and lakes
*
ten fussy days running this temple all red tape
look me up if you want to in the bar whorehouse fish market
In 1471, when seventy-seven, Ikkyü revealed his passion for a blind girl, an attendant at the Shuon’an Temple at Takigi. He wrote poems about their affair, some farcical, some very moving. He was self-conscious at the oddness of an old zen monk falling for a young woman, but they spent years together, Ikkyü’s feeling for her growing in intensity:
I love taking my new girl blind Mori on a spring picnic
I love seeing her exquisite free face its moist sexual heat shine
*
your name Mori means forest like the infinite fresh
green distances of your blindness
*
I was like an old leafless tree until we met green buds burst and blossom
now that I have you I’ll never forget what I owe you
poems translated by stephen berg in crow with no mouth
prose introduction by lucien stryk
the best season of your life
If
your mind isn’t
clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season
of your life.
this world is open sky and dustbin
This world
is an open sky and also a dustbin,
giving life to some and death to others;
the outcomes are not controlled
by this world.
Press
your finger into the world
and put it to your nose. You may smell
sweetness, or you may smell dung.
Discernment is possible in
these matters.
True hearts
stay awake if love is possible. The
others have no need for beauty, nor hope of
it. If you are holding gold in your hand,
don’t imagine ways to turn it
into mud.
☯️
The Old Fool wears
second-hand clothes and fills his belly
with tasteless food, mends holes to make a
cover against the cold, and thus the myriad affairs
of life, according to what comes, are done. Scolded, the
Old Fool merely says, “Fine.” Struck, the Old Fool falls
down to sleep. “Spit on my face, I just let it dry;
I save strength and energy and give you no
affliction.” Paramita is his style; he
gains the jewel within.
Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
🪷
Forget the body.
Let go of sensations
and obsessions and objects.
Do non-doing to the point that thoughts
cease to arise. Releasing mental constructs and
emotional entanglements, you’ll begin
to flow as a sage. Then let go
of that notion on top
of everything
else.
