What if religion was each other?
If our practice was our life?
If prayer was our words?
What if the Temple was the Earth?
If forests were our church?
If holy water—the rivers, lakes and oceans?
What if meditation was our relationships?
If the Teacher was life?
If wisdom was self-knowledge?
If love was the center of our being?
Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
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You have no idea how hard I’ve looked
for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What’s the point of bringing gold to
the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with was like
taking spices to the Orient.
It’s no good giving my heart and my
soul because you already have these.
So I’ve brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.
Waking up this morning, I smile
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me
I vow to go through them in mindfulness
And look on all beings with eyes of compassion.
An egg hatches to present the chick,
A bud blossoms to exhibit the flower,
A cocoon cracks to give forth the butterfly,
A seed sprouts to mature into the tree,
A diamond is polished to display its brilliance.
A man is to be stripped to his very core:
Stripped of his material possessions,
Stripped of his worldly engagements,
Stripped of his emotional attachments,
Stripped of his acquired ideologies,
Stripped of his false identities…
So that he could face God in all honesty,
In nothing but the utter essence of his existence.
I remember a wonderful moment
As before my eyes you appeared,
Like a vision, fleeting, momentary,
Like a spirit of the purest beauty.
In the torture of hopeless melancholy,
In the bustle of the world’s noisy hours,
That voice rang out so tenderly,
I dreamed of that lovely face of yours.
The years flew quickly. The storm’s blast
Scattered the dreams of former times,
And I forgot your tender voice,
And the features of your heavenly face.
In remoteness, in gloomy isolation,
My days dragged quietly, nothing was new,
No godlike face, no inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love, no you.
Then to my soul an awakening came,
And there again your face appeared,
Like a vision, fleeting, momentary,
Like a spirit of the purest beauty.
And my heart beat with a rapture new,
And for its sake arose again
A godlike face, an inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love, and you.
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Я помню чудное мгновенье:
Передо мной явилась ты,
Как мимолетное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.
В томленьях грусти безнадежной,
В тревогах шумной суеты,
Звучал мне долго голос нежный,
И снились милые черты.
Шли годы. Бурь порыв мятежный
Рассеял прежние мечты,
И я забыл твой голос нежный,
Твои небесные черты.
В глуши, во мраке заточенья
Тянулись тихо дни мои,
Без божества, без вдохновенья,
Без слез, без жизни, без любви.
Душе настало пробужденье,
И вот опять явилась ты,
Как мимолетное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.
И сердце бьётся в упоенье,
И для него воскресли вновь
И божество, и вдохновенье,
И жизнь, и слезы, и любовь.
O incomparable Giver of life, cut reason loose at last!
Let it wander grey-eyed from vanity to vanity.
Shatter open my skull, pour in it the wine of madness!
Let me be mad, as You; mad with You, with us.
Beyond the sanity of fools is a burning desert
Where Your sun is whirling in every atom:
Beloved, drag me there, let me roast in Perfection!
When he went blundering back to God,
His songs half written, his work half done,
Who knows what paths his bruised feet trod,
What hills of peace or pain he won?
I hope God smiled and took his hand,
And said, “Poor truant, passionate fool!
Life’s book is hard to understand:
Why couldst thou not remain at school?”
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
May today be for you
A truly special day
A time of sober reflection
As you quietly celebrate
For God has surely blessed you
Through all the years gone by
But the best years are still to come
As you journey on through life
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe–I have tried it–my own feet have tried it well–be not
detain’d!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf
unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain
unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the
court, and the judge expound the law.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourselp. will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
[Full poem here]
