Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself. – Soren Kierkegaard
Sitting Alone on Jingting Mountain
Li Bai 699-762 (Translated – Red Pine)
Flocks of birds disappear in the distance
Lone clounds wander away
Who never tires of my company
Only Jingting Mountain
Sometimes, I am propelled along by friends in such nice ways…
I have studied the DaoTeChing TaoTeChing off and on since I was 16 years of age. The use of the I Ching changed my life forever by it’s recommendations. I recognize a pivotal moment when I experience one, and the Oracle was the catalysis for the abrupt change in my life’s direction when I was just a lad.
So, recently my friend Terry gave me a copy of Lao-Tzu’s TaoTeChing (translated by Red Pine). It has given me a completely new understanding and background that I didn’t have before. I have learned much from it, and it is a delight to read! It is like a renewed romance, such excitement commingled with the long time familiar affection!
So, as I have said the TaoTeChing has been a long companion. Still I can dive into it, and find something fresh and new. It is a point of renewal for my so called spiritual side, which isn’t far from the artistic and family guy at any given time. (it’s all part of that onion)
I have not used the I-Ching as the Oracle in many years. I have found that using an Oracle whether it be the I Ching, Tarot or other devices can be a distraction from the learning process, and the gleaning that follows. This does not mean that I will never use it; I use it differently now instead as a focusing device. Here is how this works for me. I pick a passage randomly, and read it as poetry. I meditate on the passage for a long moment, then clear my head, and go forward. It does not direct me, but it gives a moment of stillness. For me, the reading is like drinking from a clear stream. It is the action that slakes the thirst, the desire.
Every Poetry Post Box that I either sell or give has the first and the last passage of the DaoTeChing:
The Way
The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
To experience without intention is to sense the world;
To experience with intention is to anticipate the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.
Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.
The Sage
Honest people use no rhetoric;
Rhetoric is not honesty.
Enlightened people are not cultured;
Culture is not enlightenment.
Content people are not rich;
Riches are not contentment.
So the sage does not serve himself;
The more he does for others, the more he is satisfied;
The more he gives, the more he receives.
Nature flourishes at the expense of no one;
So the sage benefits all men and contends with none.
Every time I read a selection from the DaoTeChing, I feel like I am stepping into a timeless moment. Lao Tzu, or Lao Tan, whoever he truly was captured something; the dark of the moon, the creative wave, a point of bliss as all unfolds. One does not going around pushing, one allows. The best action, sometimes is non-action. We are so practiced in our haste and desires.
I may rant, I may rave, but when I get out of the way, it happens.
Bone-chilling Snow
Hānshān Déqīng 1564-1623 (Translated – Red Pine)
bone-chilling snow on a thousand peaks
wildraging wind from ten thousand hollows
when I first awake deep beneath my blanket
I forget my body is in a silent world
Thank all of you who have shared the path. Without your presence, without your love, it would be so much more difficult.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Soren Kierkegaard Quotes
Maneesh De Moor – Raindance
The Links
Poems From The Shih Ching
The Radha-Krishna Romance
Maneesh de Moor – Namaste
Artist: Edward Robert Hughes
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Soren Kierkegaard Quotes:
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
Don’t forget to love yourself.
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
Boredom is the root of all evil – the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
Be that self which one truly is.
Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.
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Maneesh De Moor – Raindance
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Links:
Astronomers weigh in on Milky Way’s true colours
Infants Possess Intermingled Senses
RAW Week: My Weirdest Summer Ever, by Erik Davis
Make drug-driving illegal, but prevention is better
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Visiting Crecsent Pond
Cheng Hao 1032-1085 (translation – Red Pine)
We circle the shore of Crescent Pond
To the north is a tower that touches the sky
The world has changed in the autumn air
We pour a cup for the evening chill
The image of a cloud pauses on the water
The sound of a stream lingers beneath the trees
Our tasks are endless there’s no need to count
Let’s meet again our next day off
One Tiny Hut
Hanshan Deqing 1564-1623 (translation – Red Pine)
The shade of noble trees spreads in all directions
below the trees a tiny hut is perfectly secluded
beyond the sound of cart or horse or sign of human tracks
all day behind my door I sit alone cross-legged
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Poems From The Shih Ching
Starshine and Non-Being
Starshine asked Non-Being,
“Master, do you exist? Or do you not exist?”
Since he received no answer at all,
Starlight set himself to watch for Non-Being.
He waited to see if Non-Being would appear.
He kept his eyes fixed on the deep Void,
hoping to catch a glimpse of Non-Being.
All day long he looked.
He saw nothing.
He listened.
He heard nothing.
Then Starlight cried out at last: “This is IT!”
“This is the farthest yet! Who can reach it?
I can understand the absence of Being.
But who can understand the absence of Nothing?
If now, on top of all this, Non-Being exists,
Who can understand it?”
– Chuang-Tzu
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The Greater Master of Fate
Open wide the door of heaven!
On a black cloud I ride in splendour,
Bidding the whirlwind drive before me,
Causing the rainstorm to lay the dust.
– Ch’u Yuan
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Song of the Bronze Statue
Gone that emperor of Maoling,
Rider through the autumn wind,
Whose horse neighs at night
And has passed without trace by dawn.
The fragrance of autum lingers still
On those cassia trees by painted galleries,
But on every palace hall the green moss grows.
As Wei’s envoy sets out to drive a thousand li
The keen wind at the East Gate stings the statue’s eyes. . . .
From the ruined palace he brings nothing forth
But the moonshaped disk of Han,
True to his lord, he sheds leaden tears,
And withered orchids by the Xianyang Road
See the traveler on his way.
Ah, if Heaven had a feeling heart, it, too, must grow old!
He bears the disk off alone
By the light of the desolate moon,
The town far behind him, muted its lapping waves.
– Li He
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Bearer’s Song
When I was alive, I wandered in the streets of the Capital;
Now that I am dead, I am left to lie in the fields.
In the morning I drove out from the High Hall;
In the evening I lodged beneath the yellow springs.
When the white sun had sunk in the Western Chasm
I hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.
Now, even the Maker of All
Could not bring the life back to my limbs.
Shape and substance day by day will vanish.
Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.
Always from the days of old men has it been this way
And none born can escape this thing.
– Miu Hsi
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In the Wilds There is a Dead Doe
In the wilds there is a dead doe;
With white rushes we cover her.
There was a lady longing for the spring;
A fair knight seduced her.
In the woods there is a clump of oaks,
And in the wilds a dead deer
With white rushes well bound;
There was a lady fair as jade.
“Heigh, not so hasty, not so rough;
Heigh, do not touch my handkerchief.
Take care, or the dog will bark.”
– Anon
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The Radha-Krishna Romance
– Subhamoy Das
The Radha-Krishna amour is a love legend of all times. It’s indeed hard to miss the many legends and paintings illustrating Krishna’s love affairs, of which the Radha-Krishna affair is the most memorable. Krishna’s relationship with Radha, his favorite among the ‘gopis’ (cow-herding maidens), has served as a model for male and female love in a variety of art forms, and since the sixteenth century appears prominently as a motif in North Indian paintings. The allegorical love of Radha has found expression in some great Bengali poetical works of Govinda Das, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Jayadeva the author of Geet Govinda.
Krishna’s youthful dalliances with the ‘gopis’ are interpreted as symbolic of the loving interplay between God and the human soul. Radha’s utterly rapturous love for Krishna and their relationship is often interpreted as the quest for union with the divine. This kind of love is of the highest form of devotion in Vaishnavism, and is symbolically represented as the bond between the wife and husband or beloved and lover.
Radha, daughter of Vrishabhanu, was the mistress of Krishna during that period of his life when he lived among the cowherds of Vrindavan. Since childhood they were close to each other – they played, they danced, they fought, they grew up together and wanted to be together forever, but the world pulled them apart. He departed to safeguard the virtues of truth, and she waited for him. He vanquished his enemies, became the king, and came to be worshipped as a lord of the universe. She waited for him. He married Rukmini and Satyabhama, raised a family, fought the great war of Ayodhya, and she still waited. So great was Radha’s love for Krishna that even today her name is uttered whenever Krishna is refered to, and Krishna worship is though to be incomplete without the deification of Radha.
One day the two most talked about lovers come together for a final single meeting. Suradasa in his Radha-Krishna lyrics relates the various amorous delights of the union of Radha and Krishna in this ceremonious ‘Gandharva’ form of their wedding in front of five hundred and sixty million people of Vraj and all the gods and goddesses of heaven. The sage Vyasa refers to this as the ‘Rasa’. Age after age, this evergreen love theme has engrossed poets, painters, musicians and all Krishna devotees alike.
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Maneesh de Moor – Namaste
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The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived. – Soren Kierkegaard
Seeing Off a Friend Leaving for Shu
Li Bai 701-762 (translation – Red Pine)
You’ve heard of the Cancong Road
How rugged it is and hard to travel
Mountains rise before your face
And clouds appear beside your horse
But the planks of Qin are shrouded by fragrant trees
And the walls of Shu are circled by the currents of spring
Ups and downs are surely fixed
You don’t need to ask Jun Ping
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