Can you feel the silence?

On Hyndford Street where you could feel the silence
At half past eleven on long summer nights
As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg and the voices                                                                whispered across Beechie River
And in the quietness we sank into restful slumber in silence
And carried on dreaming in God

From Van Morrison Hymns to the Silence (1991)

A retreat hut

If the meditator is able to use whatever occurs in his life as the path, his body becomes a retreat hut.

Jigme Lingpa

Green Man

 

People tend to exaggerate

People tend to exaggerate even when relating things they have actually witnessed, but when months or years have intervened, and the place is remote, they are all the more prone to invent whatever tales suit their fancies, and, when these have been written down, fictions are accepted as fact. This holds true of skill in the various arts; ignorant men who know nothing about these arts praise the masters indiscriminately, as if they were gods, but the expert gives no credence to such tales. Things known by report always prove quite different when one has actually seen them.

From Kenko, Essays in Idleness, translated by Donald Keene (New York, 1967)

You can hear their chickens ...

Small country, few people -
Hundreds of devices,
But none are used.

People ponder on death
And don’t travel far.
They have carriages and boats,
But no one goes on board;
Weapons and armour,
But no one brandishes them.
They use knotted cords for counting.

Sweet their food,
Beautiful their clothes,
Peaceful their homes,
Delightful their customs.

Neighbouring countries are so close
You can hear their chickens and dogs.
But people grow old and die
Without needing to come and go.

Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 80, translated by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo (Indianapolis, 1993)

Splintered sunlight

                                              
                                               Walk into splintered sunlight
                                               Inch your way through dead dreams
                                               to another land

                                               From Robert Hunter 'Box of Rain' (1970)

Shall we go ...

                                                Shall we go,
                                                you and I
                                                while we can?
                                                Through
                                                the transitive nightfall
                                                of diamonds

                                               From Robert Hunter, 'Dark Star' (1967)