Just takes me a while ...

Well, my heart’s like a river, a river that sings
Just takes me a while to realize things ...

From Bob Dylan I’ve Made up my Mind to Give Myself to You (2020)

Poet for an age of crisis

                                                    Hermann Hesse 1877-1962

Lying in the grass

Is all this now ... illusory flowers,
Fuzzy colours of the bright summer meadow,
Soft blue stretches of heaven, some bee song,
Is all this now really a god’s
Groaning dreaming,
Some unconscious power’s crying for release?
The far-off line of mountains,
Fine and bold resting in the blue,
Is that too just a cramp,
Just a mad tension in seething nature,
Just grief, just pain, just a pointless testing,
Never resting, never in joyful movement?
Oh, no! Release me now, you monstrous dream
Of the world’s strain!
A midges’ dance in evening light rocks you,
And a bird’s cry rocks you,
A breath of wind cools my forehead
With affection.
Release me now, you primal human grief!
Let all be pain,
Yes, let all be strain and shadows -
But not this one sweet hour of life in the sunshine,
And not the scent of red clover,
And not the soft feeling of well-being
Deep within my soul.

Hermann Hesse, 1913 (translated by Scholar by the River)

Lockdown Easter

Protector, following the example of your life,
As long as the ocean of the realms of beings exists,
I dedicate my own and others’ merits, all together,
In order to guide the sentient beings who fill the whole of space.

From Lama Mipham, The Rain of Blessings

Moving freely ...

Only one who has seen through things understands “moving freely as one and the same”.
In this way, rather than relying on your own distinctions, you dwell in the ordinary.
To be ordinary is to be self-reliant; to be self-reliant is to move freely; and to move freely is to arrive.
That’s almost it, because to arrive is to be complete.
But to be complete without understanding how - that is called Way.

From Chuang Tzu, The Inner Chapters, translated by David Hinton (Berkeley, 2013)

Resting with Tai Ji’s nothingness ...

... even if you practice the movements and don’t get anything else, you will still get the benefit of exercise, and certainly Tai Ji won’t do you any harm! The important thing in Tai Ji is not how well you look but how well you feel. Sometimes you might have very pleasant feelings of lightness, and the practice may also hit a certain part of your mind and help with that too: as the practice becomes more effective you may experience your mind resting with Tai Ji’s nothingness ...

Miss Rose Shao Chiang Li

When I became a bird ...

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

From Liz Berry, Black Country (London. 2014)