Evening Drink

"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." - Carl Sandburg

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." - Isaac Asimov

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Anyone can see that if grasping and aversion were with us all day and night without ceasing, who could ever stand them? Under that condition, living things would either die or become insane. Instead, we survive because there are natural periods of coolness, of wholeness, and ease. In fact, they last longer than the fires of our grasping and fear. It is this that sustains us. We have periods of rest making us refreshed, alive, well. Why don't we feel thankful for this everyday Nirvana?

We already know how to let go - we do it every night when we go to sleep, and that letting go, like a good night's sleep, is delicious. Opening in this way, we can live in the reality of our wholeness. A little letting go brings us a little peace, a greater letting go brings us a greater peace. Entering the gateless gate, we begin to treasure the moments of wholeness. We begin to trust the natural rhythm of the world, just as we trust our own sleep and how our own breath breathes itself." - Jack Kornfield

Gate, gate
paragate,
parasamgate,
bodhi swaha.
- Buddhist Mantra

"Gone, gone beyond,
really gone beyond,
really most utterly gone beyond,
salute this wisdom."

Evening Drink

Look at the sweet flow
spilling from the ewer's lip
like my heart's warm pulse.
It threads the late air
on it's well aimed way into
my waiting wide cup.
Swirling up and back
to settle in a golden
pool, there it fire shines.

September 1, 2009 12:56 PM