Maya's Veil

"Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya. [...] Maya is neither existence nor non-existence. Both the Niagara Falls and the rainbow are eternally changeable. [...] Nature is Maya. Maya means name and form, into which everything is cast. Maya is not real. We could not destroy it or change it if it were real. The substance is the noumenon, Maya is phenomena. There is the real “me” which nothing can destroy, and there is the phenomenal “me” which is continually changing and disappearing.

...

Maya is not illusion as it is popularly interpreted. Maya is real, yet it is not real. It is real in that the Real is behind it and gives it its appearance of reality. That which is real in Maya is the Reality in and through Maya. Yet the Reality is never seen; and hence that which is seen is unreal, and it has no real independent existence of itself, but is dependent upon the Real for its existence. Maya then is a paradox - real, yet not real, an illusion, yet not an illusion. He who knows the Real sees in Maya not illusion, but reality. He who knows not the Real sees in Maya illusion and thinks it real."

- Swami Vivekananda (1863 - 1902)

Gentle Pulsing

"Over this great expanse there is no disturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake! Again the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf and twig and stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered with dew in a spring morning."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Walden

There is a Cause

"To return to the difficulty which has been stated with respect both to definitions and to numbers, what is the cause of their unity? In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something beside the parts, there is a cause."

 - Aristotle (384–322 BC)

Inward Gathering

"Nature looks dead in winter because
her life is gathered into her heart.
She withers the plant down to the root that
she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together within her
inmost home to prepare them for being
scattered abroad upon the
face of the earth."

- Hugh Macmillan (1833 - 1903)
The Ministry of Nature

Nature's Calligraphy

"Just as writing can become calligraphy when it's
creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed,
so can all other activities become art.
In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself
as an artistic statement—the art of living."

- H.E. Davey (1961 - )
Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

Leaving a Trace

"The enlightened mind is like a bird in flight that leaves no trace of its path. People will say, 'A bird just flew by.' In their mind, there is a trace of the bird’s path. This is attachment. For the enlightened practitioner, that moment is already gone—the bird has left no trace of its flight. Like the bird, from moment to moment the enlightened practitioner’s actions do not leave any trace."

- Sheng Yen (1931 - 2009)
The Method of No-Method

Mimir’s Well

"Odin’s eye remains in Mimir’s well,
preserved by the waters that feed the world ash,
seeing nothing, seeing everything. Time."

- Neil Gaiman (1960 - )
Norse Mythology

The Nature of Things Illuminated

"For even the light of the sun which it has in itself would perhaps escape our sense of sight if a more solid mass did not lie under it. But if someone said that the sun was all light, one might take this as contributing to the explanation of what we are trying to say; for the sun will then be light which is in no form belonging to other visible things … This, then, is what the seeing of Intellect is like; this also sees by another light the things illuminated by that first nature, and sees the light in them; when it turns its attention to the nature of the things illuminated, it sees the light less; but if it abandons the things its sees and looks at the medium by which it sees them, it looks at light and the source of light.

...

What is above life is cause of life; for the activity of life, which is all things, is not first, but itself flows out, so to speak, as if from a spring. For think of a spring that has no other origin, but gives the whole of itself to rivers, and is not used up by the rivers but remains itself at rest, ... or of the life of a huge plant, which goes through the whole of it while its origin remains and is not dispersed over the whole, since it is, as it were, firmly settled in the root.

...

The One is all things and not a single one of them: it is the principle of all things, not all things, but all things have that other kind of transcendent existence; for in a way they do occur in the One; or rather they are not there yet, but they will be. How then do all things come from the One, which is simple and has in it no diverse variety, or any sort of doubleness? It is because there is nothing in it that all things come from it. ... For something like what is in Intellect, in many ways greater, is in that One, it is like a light dispersed far and wide from some one thing translucent in itself; what is dispersed is image, but that from which it comes is truth; though certainly the dispersed image, Intellect is not of alien form."

- Plotinus (c. 204/5 – 270 CE)

One Eye

"The eye through which I see God is the
same eye through which God sees me;
my eye and God's eye are one eye,
one seeing, one knowing, one love.
...
Nothing in all creation is
so like God as stillness.
...
When the Soul wants to experience something
she throws out an image in front of her
and then steps into it."

- Meister Eckhart (1260 - 1328)

What Are Things?

"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring;

like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying, What I do is me: for that I came."

- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889)
Quoted in Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality,
by Timothy Morton (1968 - )

Original Realization

"Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles in the world of phenomena in the ten directions all engage in buddha activity, those who receive the benefits of the wind and water are inconceivably helped by the buddha's transformation, splendid and unthinkable, and intimately manifest enlightenment. Those who receive these benefits of water and fire widely engage in circulating the buddha's transformation based on original realization."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)
 Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Returning to the Source

"Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away."

 - Tao Te Ching, Chapter 16

Poetry and Grace

"Things are either devolving toward,
or evolving from, nothingness.

...

Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.

...

The closer things get to nonexistence,
the more exquisite and evocative they become.
Consequently to experience wabi-wabi means
you have to slow way down,
be patient, and look
very closely."

- Leonard Koren (1948 - )
Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

Nature Gazing Upon Itself

"Thus, when we look out at the world,
we are nature gazing upon itself."

- Philip Toshio Sudo (1959 - 2002)
Zen 24/7: All Zen, All the Time

Glorious Light

 "Light! Oh, how lovely, how sublime art thou!
The purest creature of the Almighty's hand,
Which human eyes behold! ...
Through unexplored immensity stretch'd out,
Perchance outspread to infinite extent
From this dark ball up to the throne of God?
O glorious Light ! how welcome to the eye !
How cheering to the earth! without thy smile,
All nature's face one pallid hue would wear,
All living things would droop, despair, and die
And this fair frame of being back return
To that chaotic state in which it lay,
Ere shone the sun, or with creative voice,
God said 'Let there be light!' - And light there was.
...
Form, though a palpable presence of—is still
A creature of the element of light;
A thing that offers converse to the eye,
And definition of all actual bulk.
By shape alone, whatever we regard
As beauty's line, through every mazy change,
With infinite delight the mind proceeds.
Nor merely man to perfect stature wrought
Nor beasts, birds, streams, mountains, fields, or trees
Nor sculptor's art, nor limner's, only please
But simplest lines and curves, transposed and join'd,
Attract, and fix the mind with wondrous charms,
As, if in the solution of their laws,
Or midst their combinations manifold,
The secret of man's happiness lay hid."

- John Holland (1794 - 1872)
Pleasures of Sight

Apparition

 "Let us interrogate the great apparition,
that shines so peacefully around us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Light and Darkness

"The universe will never be extinguished
because just when the darkness
seems to have smothered all, to
to be truly transcendent, the new
seeds of light are reborn
in the very depths."

- Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982)

Bodhisattva of Compassion

"The winds have died, but flowers go on falling;
birds call, but silence penetrates each song.
The Mystery! Unknowable, unlearnable.
The virtue of Kannon."

- Ryōkan (1758 - 1831)

The World of Distinctions

"The ten thousand things are in reality neither sentient nor insentient; the self is neither sentient nor insentient. Because of this fact, the teachings of the insentient cannot be perceived by the senses. Our minds are conditioned to divide and compartmentalize reality. We have come to know and define the universe dualistically. As a result, everything we have created with our minds is dualistic. Our philosophy, psychology, medicine, politics, sociology and education are based on a dualistic understanding of the nature of the universe. What kind of world would this be if our appreciation and activity were based on non-duality? Could we function out of such realization? Of course we could. Thousands of people have navigated the world of distinctions from the perspective of the unity of all things, a perspective that presents all things as interdependent entities, mutually arising, and with mutual causality. This kind of vision requires us to see the aspect of existence that is neither being nor non-being, neither self nor other."

- John Daido Loori (1931 - 2009)
Making Love With Light

Naked and Entwined

"A human being is never what he is but the self he seeks.

...

...because two bodies, naked and entwined,
leap over time, they are invulnerable,
nothing can touch them, they return to the source,
there is no you, no I, no tomorrow,
no yesterday, no names,
the truth of two in a single body,
a single soul, oh total being...

...

Art is the opposite of dissipation,
in the physical and spiritual sense of the word:
it is concentration, desire that seeks incarnation.

...

To love is to undress our names."

- Octavio Paz (1914 - 1998)