When I became a bird ...

When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me.

From Liz Berry, Black Country (London. 2014)

A pure vision of the place where we are ...

The root of the Vajrayana is “pure vision”, or the perception of the perfect purity of all phenomena. To enact this purity of perception, we do not perceive the place where we are now as just any ordinary place; we imagine it to be a celestial buddhafield. As we recite the description in the visualisation, we consider this place itself to be the supreme paradise of Guru Rinpoche, Zangdopalri - the Glorious Copper Coloured Mountain - where everything reflects total perfection. The ground is composed of gold, the trees are wish-fulfilling trees, and the rain is the rainfall of nectar. All beings are dakas and dakinis; the calls of the birds are the sounds of Dharma; the sounds of nature, wind, water, and fire reverberate as the Vajra Guru mantra; and all thoughts are expressions of wisdom and bliss.

From Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Guru Yoga (New York, 1999)

Under the eastern hedge

                                               Shitao: Poetic Feeling of Tao Yuanming

You just go ahead ...

We worry about our adequacy. Am I skillful enough? Am I good enough to do what I am doing? It is so uncertain, and at some point, there’s no help for it. To find our way in life, we will have to have some strong conviction. We’ll just have to go ahead. If you wait until you’re good enough or you’re skilful enough or until you are sure of yourself and are certain to get it right, it may never happen. At some point there’s no help for it, and you just go ahead ...
... You start from where you are standing still, and you accelerate yourself into activity - into hearing and seeing and acting - where things are coming along. But at the same time, there’s no help for it. If you wait for I’m inspired or I’m sure it’s okay, then your whole life may be spent waiting. And over time you may find that worse than going ahead.

From Edward Espe Brown, The Most Important Point (Boulder, 2019)

Summer’s radiance ...

When winter wind scratches and chafes,
we face south and the enduring warmth,

and when summer’s radiance blazes down,
we face north where frost and snow abide.

From The Mountain Poems of Hsieh Ling-yun, translated by David Hinton (New York, 2001)

What is there left for me?

... you cannot hold out for a second by the clock but lament: ‘time is a constant dripping by of moments which fall behind one another and go up in smoke; above, the future hangs unchanged, and below, the past grows eternally and becomes bigger and bigger the further it flees backward; what is there left for me?’ ‘The present,’ I reply. However much time may fly before you, the present is your eternity and will never forsake you.

Jean Paul Richter

Look carefully

Every stick has two ends ...

G.I. Gurdjieff

In my garden

Spring blossoms

If only I could
divide myself,
not miss a single tree,
see the blossoms at their best
on all ten thousand mountains!

From the Spring section of Saigyo. Poems of a Mountain Home, translated by Burton Watson (New York, 1991)

Believed as truth

Professional jealousy, can bring down a nation
And personal invasion, can ruin a man
Not even his family, will understand what’s happening
The price that he’s paying, or even the pain

Professional jealousy, started a rumour
And then it extended, to be more abuse
What started out as just, black propaganda
Was one day seen to be, believed as truth

From Van Morrison Hymns to the Silence (1991)