Thursday, March 31, 2016

Your Own Self


"Whether you are going or staying
or sitting or lying down, 
the whole world is your own self. 
You must find out
whether the mountains, rivers,
grass, and forests 
exist in your own mind
or exist outside it. 
Analyze the ten thousand things, 
dissect them minutely, 
and when you take this to the limit 
you will come to the limitless, 
when you search into it you come
to the end of search, 
where thinking goes no further
and distinctions vanish. 
When you smash the citadel of doubt, 
then the Buddha is simply yourself." 

(c. 1213-1278)

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Nothing is as it Appears


"Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with
qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake
the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds, and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen,
carts and other things,
Nothing is as it appears." 

(2nd century CE)

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Spiritual Wings

 

"... thus music brings into view the form of movement of celestial bodies, the pure form, freed from object and matter, as its very rhythm and harmony. Music is that art which has shed physicalness the most, by presenting pure movement as such, removed from any object, and by being carried by invisible, almost spiritual wings." 

F. W. J. Schelling (1775 - 1854)

Monday, March 28, 2016

Sometimes the Image is the Thing


“Abstraction is idea
without body.
The object photographed may
have nothing to do with
the subject though the
object may be subject.
The photograph may be an
objective document of pure subjectivity.
There are things in the world
that are unseen to the unaided.
There are seens that are not.
If all language is ultimately metaphor,
then don't talk to me of first principles.
It is wrong to assume that in a
photograph there must always have been
something - some thing.
Sometimes the image is the thing.” 

- Roger Newton (1960 - )

Monday, March 21, 2016

Interbeing


“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. 'Interbeing' is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix 'inter-' with the verb 'to be,' we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. 'To be' is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.” 
- Hanh Nhat Thich (1926 - )

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Ring of Brodgar, Stenness


"There, on a little hill near to the lake, in a tomb, was found the bones of a man, which indeed were connected together, in length fourteen feet as the author affirmed, and money was found under the head of the dead man; and indeed I viewed the tomb...There at the lake are stones high and broad, in height equal to a spear, and in an equal circle of half a mile."

- Jo Ben (c.16th Century)

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Simplicities of Natural Laws


“The simplicities of natural laws 
arise through the complexities
of the language we use 
for their expression.” 

(1902-1995)