Posts Tagged → zen

being in harmony is the true way

arthur morris

 

You disciples and apostles,

you all do the same work, yet you try

to determine who’s above and who’s below.

Each of you thinks you’re special, and in that

vanity you irritate each other mightily.

You think there will not be enough,

so you fight for your portion

like dogs in the street.

 

Being in harmony

is the true way, not this itch

of greed, this constricted stall where

you and other donkeys get beaten with a stick.

Move instead to the praise-place, inside the

mystery, where prayer is unlimited,

and you feel the delight of

giving homage.

 

Bahauddin, father of Rumi

the drowned book

the guardian spirit lodged within

rannveig aamodt

 

If you find anything

better in human life than justice,

honesty, moderation and courage — if,

to put it generally, you find anything better

than the self-sufficiency of your mind on those

occasions that your actions are compatible with

right reason, as well as when something is allotted

to you by fate without your having chosen it —

if, I say, you’re aware of anything better

than this, turn to it with all your heart

and enjoy the supreme good

you’ve discovered.

 

But if you find

nothing better than the

guardian spirit lodged within you,

which has brought all your particular

impulses under its control, which scrutinizes

your thoughts, which, as Socrates used to say, has

withdrawn itself from sensations, which has put itself

in the gods’ hands, and which cared providentially for

other people — if everything else turns out to be

trivial and worthless by comparison,

then make room for

nothing else.

 

Marcus Aurelius

the annotated marcus