Monday 30 August 2010

THE SHOWROOM







Just as a doorman beckons to the passer-by
Inviting him to view the naked ladies,
As a showroom displays the latest models
And a piece of cheese leads the mouse to his certain death
So this glittering bait leads us to a momentary contentment.

Denial of the manifest existence is a further blasphemy
As blasphemous as a shotgun marriage to it.
The intricacy of thought patterns
Taken as real
Are ever more subtle.
 Hook, line and sinker come to mind.

Where does the poor me fit into all this?
Where can the ‘I’ take a rest?
Whose theory or practice will provide liberation from attachment?

A small voice whispers the timeless message
“There is no way out,
There is no ‘I’”

When the cupboard is completely bare
When even the dogs have given up sniffing around
A feast is laid.

Clean Sweep



This morning he awoke with the words 'swept clean'.

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Life Off The Wheel



Whether I accept or not makes no difference to what is.

THE RELUCTANT WARRIOR







Encased in a suit of armour
Strapped to a warhorse
He charges into battle.

He doesn’t want to be a soldier
He can’t ride a horse.

If this is what is written
There are only two choices:
Grab the reins for dear life,
Aim the lance with measured accuracy 
Or release the reins
And jettison the weapon.

In both cases he is likely to lose his head,
Unless he awakens.

In that state there never was a head.

Sunday 22 August 2010

Songs of Praise



When the 'me' is here I am a student. When absent there is no student and no master. Yet a flavour of gratitude and devotion lingers.

Thursday 19 August 2010

 He is coincidentally named after the rudraksha tree whose seeds are used for making malas.

Queen of Peace





Princess Dyhana

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Cat Burglar





Another thief caught red handed: "How am I doing on the path?"

Thursday 12 August 2010

On looking out to sea





How could this be your face
Your eyes, your ears?
Your breath, your palms
Your speech, your laugh?
For that matter
How could you lay claim to all you see?

Every scrap you label as yours
is someone else's.
What a cat burglar this mind is.
See how he enters from the roof,
invades the floors below
and blocks all exits.

If none of this is yours,
Let him have what he wants.
He is only stealing stolen property.

Gratitude is too small a word for this.

Tuesday 10 August 2010

The Sweetest Flag




Yellow for caution
Red for Stop
Black for mourning
White; the universal solvent

Paint Stripper







"The spiritual journey," says Thomas Keating, "is not a career or success story. It is a series of  humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound."

Colleen Loehr  comments:
 "The world stood on its head.  For decades I had been seeking accumulation and self-enhancement when in fact all along the deeper longing was for the very opposite: diminution of that heavy burden of an imaginary ego-self ."


With thanks to:  http://emersonandtolle.blogspot.com/



FOREST LIFE







Not a forest leaf shimmers without the grace of The Ancestor.
 The wild boar can grunt all they like,
 Yet even that is divine music played on cracked instruments.
 The whining orchestra of this world is in another part of the forest.
 Here there is no resistance.
 Just home.
 While all around are yelping for home.

It could never be better than this and this and this, unless we think it.
 When thought colours the picture, the painting is spoilt.


 O man if only you knew how to be truly lazy.




Friday 6 August 2010

Odyssey


I am at my most dangerous, and most vulnerable, when I think I know.

Thursday 5 August 2010

The school of soft knocks



In the boarding school of Self-Realisation the day starts with Dis-Assembly. The pupils have to answer to 'present 'or 'not present'. Only those who affirm to both are admitted to classes. The rest go to class as usual.