The town in the country: spring

... what is the mind?

"You ask, that's your mind. I answer, that's my mind. If I had no mind, how could I answer? If you had no mind, how could you ask? That which asks is your mind."

Damo (Bodhidharma)

It is the same everywhere ...

1. 

Take me back
before the Picts
to the Pre-Celtic Dreamtime
before "mine" and "yours"
or the forging of swords
when there was no boundary
between life and death.

2.

Then came the Celtic warriors
thirty thousand tribesmen down from the hills
bloodied but unbowed
standing up to the might
of the whole Roman Empire.

In Swordwielder's words:
"the most distant dwellers upon the earth
the last of the free".

3.

And bear in mind
that Columba
was not trying
to get to the
edge of somewhere.

But crossing from
Donegal to Dalriada
he stopped halfway
at dead centre
making Iona
the very heart
of the Celtic Church.

4.

At the Hill of the Angels

Yes indeed, Colum Cille
stood here too, arms outstretched
and bathed in golden light.

Now I sit here
fingers downstretched
feeling the warm support
of Mother Earth
embracing the bright space
of Father Sky
and know it is the same
everywhere.

... no theories ...

... the Tathagata had no theories, beause he had seen the nature of things ...

From Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, (Bedford, 1959).

(Tathagata is the main title the Buddha used to describe himself in the Pali canon: from the Sankrit for one who has transcended all coming and going.)

As though he did not have it

Delectable indeed is this state.
But he who has it, said the Master with a subtle smile, would do well to have it as though he did not have it.
Only unbroken equanimity can accept it in such a way that it is not afraid to come back.

Japanese master archer Awa Kenzo, as reported in Eugen Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery (London, 1953).

Become parables

When the sage says: "Go over," he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labour were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least ...

... Concerning this a man once said: "Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares."
Another said: "I bet that is also a parable."
The first said: "You have won."
The second said: "But unfortunately only in parable."
The first said: "No, in reality: in parable you have lost."

From Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes. In German and English (New York, 1946).

The town in the country: autumn