There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;

there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

Basho

Alan Watts discusses Nothing

Whether one believes in a religion or not,

and whether one believes in rebirth or not,

there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.

Dalai Lama

The Fragrance of the Rose

The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-tzu's dictum:

"Those who know, do not say;

Those who say, do not know."

When the master entered,

they asked him what the words meant.

Said the master, "Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?"

All of them indicated that they knew.

Then he said, "Put it into words."

All of them were silent.

On life's journey

Faith is nourishment,

Virtuous deeds are a shelter,

Wisdom is the light by day and

Right mindfulness is the protection by night.

If a man lives a pure life nothing can destroy him;

If he has conquered greed nothing can limit his freedom.

Buddha

When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.

The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

Although its light is wide and great,

The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.

The whole moon and the entire sky

Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Dogen

Le voyageur

A Fernand Fleuret

Ouvrez-moi cette porte où je frappe en pleurant

La vie est variable aussi bien que l'Euripe

Tu regardais un banc de nuages descendre

Avec le paquebot orphelin vers les fièvres futures

Et de tous ces regrets de tous ces repentirs

Te souviens-tu

Vagues poissons arqués fleurs submarines

Une nuit c'était la mer

Et les fleuves s'y répandaient

Je m'en souviens je m'en souviens encore

Un soir je descendis dans une auberge triste

Auprès de Luxembourg

Dans le fond de la salle il s'envolait un Christ

Quelqu'un avait un furet

Un autre un hérisson

L'on jouait aux cartes

Et toi tu m'avais oublié

Te souviens-tu du long orphelinat des gares

Nous traversâmes des villes qui tout le jour tournaient

Et vomissaient la nuit le soleil des journées

O matelots ô femmes sombres et vous mes compagnons

Souvenez-vous-en

Deux matelots qui ne s'étaient jamais quittés

Deux matelots qui ne s'étaient jamais parlé

Le plus jeune en mourant tomba sur le côté

O vous chers compagnons

Sonneries électriques des gares chant des moissonneuses

Traîneau d'un boucher régiment des rues sans nombre

Cavalerie des ponts nuits livides de l'alcool

Les villes que j'ai vues vivaient comme des folles

Te souviens-tu des banlieues et du troupeau plaintif des paysages

Les cyprès projetaient sous la lune leurs ombres

J'écoutais cette nuit au déclin de l'été

Un oiseau langoureux et toujours irrité

Et le bruit éternel d'un fleuve large et sombre

Mais tandis que mourants roulaient vers l'estuaire

Tous les regards tous les regards de tous les yeux

Les bords étaient déserts herbus silencieux

Et la montagne à l'autre rive était très claire

Alors sans bruit sans qu'on pût voir rien de vivant

Contre le mont passèrent des ombres vivaces

De profil ou soudain tournant leurs vagues faces

Et tenant l'ombre de leurs lances en avant

Les ombres contre le mont perpendiculaire

Grandissaient ou parfois s'abaissaient brusquement

Et ces ombres barbues pleuraient humainement

En glissant pas à pas sur la montagne claire

Qui donc reconnais-tu sur ces vieilles photographies

Te souviens-tu du jour où une vieille abeille tomba dans le feu

C'était tu t'en souviens à la fin de l'été

Deux matelots qui ne s'étaient jamais quittés

L'aîné portait au cou une chaîne de fer

Le plus jeune mettait ses cheveux blonds en tresse

Ouvrez-moi cette porte où je frappe en pleurant

La vie est variable aussi bien que l'Euripe

Bruce Cockburn -Strange Waters

I've seen a high cairn kissed by holy wind
Seen a mirror pool cut by golden fins
Seen alleys where they hide the truth of cities
The mad whose blessing you must accept without pity

I've stood in airports guarded glass and chrome
Walked rifled roads and landmined loam
Seen a forest in flames right down to the road
Burned in love till I've seen my heart explode

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters

Across the concrete fields of man
Sun ray like a camera pans
Some will run and some will stand
Everything is bullshit but the open hand

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

I took a deep breath and listened to the old way of my heart
I am
I am
I am

Ganges Mahamudra - Tilopa

I bow to Vajra Dakini.

1.
Mahamudra cannot be taught, Naropa,
But your devotion to your teacher and the hardships you’ve met
Have made you patient in suffering and also wise:
Take this to heart, my worthy student.

2.
For instance, consider space: what depends on what?
Likewise, mahamudra: it doesn't depend on anything.
Don't control. Let go and rest naturally.
Let what binds you let go and freedom is not in doubt.

3.
When you look into space, seeing stops.
Likewise, when mind looks at mind,
The flow of thinking stops and you come to the deepest awakening.

4.
Mists rise from the earth and vanish into space.
They go nowhere, nor do they stay.
Likewise, though thoughts arise,
Whenever you see your mind, the clouds of thinking clear.

5.
Space is beyond color or shape.
It doesn’t take on color, black or white: it doesn’t change.
Likewise, your mind, in essence, is beyond color or shape.
It does not change because you do good or evil.

6.
The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim
The brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun.
Likewise, eons of samsara cannot dim
The sheer clarity that is the essence of your mind.

7.
Although you say space is empty,
You can’t say that space is “like this”.
Likewise, although mind is said to be sheer clarity,
There is nothing there: you can’t say “it’s like this”.

8.
Thus, the nature of mind is inherently like space:
It includes everything you experience.

9.
Stop all physical activity: sit naturally at ease.
Do not talk or speak: let sound be empty, like an echo.
Do not think about anything: look at experience beyond thought.

10.
Your body has no core, hollow like bamboo.
Your mind goes beyond thought, open like space.
Let go of control and rest right there.

11.
Mind without projection is mahamudra.
Train and develop this and you will come to the deepest awakening.

12.
You don’t see mahamudra’s sheer clarity
By means of classical texts or philosophical systems,
Whether of the mantras, paramitas,
Vinaya, sutras or other collections.

13.
Ambition clouds sheer clarity and you don’t see it.
Thinking about precepts undermines the point of commitment.
Do not think about anything; let all ambition drop.
Let what arises settle by itself, like patterns in water.
No place, no focus, no missing the point —
Do not break this commitment: it is the light in the dark.

14.
When you are free from ambition and don’t hold any position,
You will see all that the scriptures teach.
When you open to this, you are free from samsara’s prison.
When you settle in this, all evil and distortion burn up.
This is called “The Light of the Teaching”.

15.
The foolish are not interested in this.
The currents of samsara constantly carry them away.
Oh, how pitiable, the foolish — their struggles never end.
Don’t accept these struggles, long for freedom, and rely on a skilled teacher.
When his (her) energy enters your heart, your mind is freed.

16.
What joy!
Samsaric ways are senseless: they are the seeds of suffering.
Conventional ways are pointless. Focus on what is sound and true.
Majestic outlook is beyond all fixation.
Majestic practice is no distraction.
Majestic behavior is no action or effort.
The fruition is there when you are free from hope and fear.

17.
Beyond any frame of reference mind is naturally clear.
Where there is no path you begin the path of awakening.
Where there is nothing to work on you come to the deepest awakening.

18.
Alas! Look carefully at this experience of the world.
Nothing lasts. It’s like a dream, like magic.
The dream, the magic, makes no sense.
Experience this grief and forget the affairs of the world.

19.
Cut all ties of involvement with country or kin,
Practice alone in forest or mountain retreats.
Rest, not practicing anything.
When you come to nothing to come to, you come to mahamudra.

20.
A tree spreads its branches and leaves.
Cut the root and ten thousand branches wither.
Likewise, cut the root of mind and the leaves of samsara wither.

21.
Though darkness gathers for a thousand eons.
A single light dispels it all.
Likewise, one moment of sheer clarity
Dispels the ignorance, evil and confusion of a thousand eons.

22.
What joy!
With the ways of the intellect you won’t see beyond intellect.
With the ways of action you won’t know non-action.
If you want to know what is beyond intellect and action,
Cut your mind at its root and rest in naked awareness.

23.
Let the cloudy waters of thinking settle and clear.
Let appearances come and go on their own.
With nothing to change, the world you experience becomes mahamudra.
Because the basis of experience has no beginning, patterns and distortions fall away.
Rest in no beginning, with no self-interest or expectation.
Let what appears appear on its own and let conceptual ways subside.

24.
The most majestic of outlooks is free of all reference.
The most majestic of practices is vast and deep without limit.
The most majestic of behaviors is open-minded and impartial.
The most majestic of fruitions is natural being, free of concern.

25.
At first, practice is a river rushing through a gorge.
In the middle, it’s the river Ganges, smooth and flowing.
In the end, it’s where all rivers meet, mother and child.

26.
When your mind is less acute and does not truly rest,
Work the essentials of energy and bring out the vitality of awareness.
Using gazes and techniques to take hold of mind
Train awareness until it does truly rest.

27.
When you practice with a sexual partner, empty bliss awareness arises.
The balancing of method and wisdom transforms energy.
Let it descend gently, collect it, draw it back up,
Return it to its place, and let it saturate your body.
When you are free from longing and desire, empty bliss awareness arises.

28.
You will have a long life, you will not gray, and you will shine like the moon.
You will radiate health and well-being and be as strong as a lion.
You will quickly attain the ordinary abilities and open to the supreme one.

May these pith instructions, the essentials of mahamudra,
Abide in the hearts of all worthy beings.

These are the great Tilopa’s oral instructions. On the completion of the twelve hardships, Tilopa taught these on the banks of the river Ganges to the Kashmiri pandit, the wise and learned Naropa. Naropa taught The Twenty-Eight Vajra Verses to the great interpreter, the king of translators, Marpa Chökyi Lodrö. Marpa finalized his translation at Pulahari in the north of India. Ken McLeod translated this into English in Los Angeles in the southwest of the United States, working from the efforts of previous translators and various commentaries.

Six Words of Advice

1 MI MNO Don' t recall, Let go of what has passed
2 MI BSAM Don't imagine, Let go of what may come
3 MI SHES Don't think, Let go of what is happening now
4 MI DPYOD Don't examine, Don't try to figure anything out
5 MI SGOM Don't control, Don't try to make anything happen
6 RANG SAR BZHAG Rest, Relax right now and rest

Tilopa

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.
Tilopa

ΑΡΝΗΣΗ (ΣΤΟ ΠΕΡΙΓΙΑΛΙ ΤΟ ΚΡΥΦΟ) - ΓΡΗΓΟΡΗΣ ΜΠΙΘΙΚΩΤΣΗΣ

Μ.ΦΑΡΑΝΤΟΥΡΗ - ΑΡΝΗΣΗ (Στο περιγιάλι το κρυφό)

Arno Elias - New Day

Where there is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense.
Friedrich Nietzsche

lotus flower

L'érotisme est l'une des bases de la connaissance de soi, aussi indispensable que la poésie.
Anais Nin

Ιδού η βάση κάθε καλλιτεχνικής εμπειρίας: να κρατά κανείς σε εγρήγορση την εσώτατη συνείδηση του που, γιά κάθε ολοκληρωμένη εμπειρία, μας επιτρέπει να γνωρίζουμε κατά πόσον μπορεί, με την μορφή αυτή, να υποστηριχθεί ως αληθινή και ακέραιη. Ενα τέτοιο θεμέλιο θα έπρεπε να δημιουργείται ακόμη κι' όταν η έμπνευση διατηρείται σαν αιώρηση, μη έχοντας, θα έλεγε κανείς, ανάγκη εδάφους.
Ολες οι δημιουργικές διαδικασίες, ακόμη και οι πιό παραγωγικές, ουσιαστικά δεν στοχεύουν παρά στη δημιουργία μιάς κάποιας εσωτερικής σταθεράς. Κι' ίσως η τέχνη να σημαίνει τόσα πολλά απλώς και μόνο επειδή κάποια απ' τα πιό αυθεντικά δημιουργήματα της εγγυώνται την επίτευξη μιάς πιό αξιόπιστης εσωτερικής στάσης - (et encore?). Ειδικά στην εποχή μας, όπου οι περισσότεροι επιδίδονται σε καλλιτεχνικές (ή σε ότι καλείται "καλλιτεχνικές") δραστηριότητες από φιλοδοξία, θα πρέπει γιά να κρίνουμε την τέχνη, να επιμείνουμε στο ύστατο, μοναδικό τούτο θεμέλιο που είναι τόσο βαθύ και μυστικό, ώστε ακίμη και η πιό αδιόρατη συνεισφορά προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση θα πρέπει να εξισώνεται με την πλέον προφανή και διάσημη: την αληθινή (καλλιτεχνική) παραγωγή.

J.J. Cale - You keep me hangin on

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
Swami Vivekananda

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
Swami Vivekananda

"He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God."
Swami Vivekananda

The sage said: The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Some complain that roses have thorns. Others rejoice that thorns have roses! ~ Anonymous

Spirit Of Nature ... Yanni.