Posts Tagged → buddhism

try to praise the mutilated world

travel light

 

Try

to praise

the mutilated world.


Remember June’s long days,


and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.


The nettles that methodically overgrow


the abandoned homesteads

of exiles.


 

You

must praise

the mutilated world.


You watched the stylish yachts

and ships;
 one of them had a long trip

ahead of it,
 while salty oblivion awaited others.


You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere,


you’ve heard the executioners

sing joyfully.


 

You

should praise

the mutilated world.


Remember the moments when

we were together 
in a white room and

the curtain fluttered.
 Return in thought to

the concert where music flared.
You

gathered acorns in the park in

autumn 
and leaves eddied

over the earth’s

scars.


 

Praise

the mutilated world


and the gray feather a thrush lost,


and the gentle light that strays

and vanishes
 and

returns.

 

Adam Zagajewski

 

i have arrived, i am already home

miguel claro

 

All we have to do is

be ourselves, fully and authentically.

We don’t have to run after anything. We already

contain the whole cosmos. We simply return to ourselves

through mindfulness, and touch the peace and joy

that are already present within us

and all around us.

 

I have arrived.

I am already home. 

There is nothing to do.

Aimlessness, nonattainment,

 is a wonderful practice.

 
Thich Nhat Hanh

 

one who meets daito face to face

daito kokushi

 

As with the classical

Chinese teachers of the Tang dynasty,

Shuho maintained that awakening was central to

Buddhist practice. In a document called Daito’s Testament, he

reminded his students, “You have come here not for food or clothing

but for religion. As long as you have a mouth, you will have food;

as long as you have a body, you will have clothes. Don’t concern

yourself with these. Be mindful throughout your waking

hours; time flies like an arrow, don’t waste it with

concern over worldly matters.”

 

He went on to tell his disciples

that even if they were to become the abbots

of wealthy monasteries and received the respect of

the laity and nobility, even if they were rigorous in their practice

of meditation and ritual activities, but they lacked awakening, they were

no more than members of the “tribe of evil spirits.” Conversely, if they

were poverty stricken, lived in a ramshackle hermitage, and ate

only what wild food they gathered in the forests and

yet they were awakened, then they would be

“one who meets me face to face

and repays my kindness.”

 

Daito Kokushi

years of hunger beneath gojo bridge

 

everything is buddha

on this date a buddha was born

 

There is no distinction

between heaven and earth, man and woman,

teacher and disciple. Sometimes a man bows to a woman;

sometimes a woman bows to a man. Sometimes the disciple bows

to the master; sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master

who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha.

Sometimes the master and disciple bow together

to Buddha. Sometimes we may bow

to cats and dogs.

 

In your big mind,

everything has the same value.

Everything is Buddha himself. You see something

or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is.

In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to

each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there

is Buddhahood. Then Buddha bows to Buddha,

and you bow to yourself. This is

the true bow.

 

Shunryu Suzuki

zen mind, beginner’s mind