Crow on a bare branch

Kare eda ni
Karasu no tomari keri,
Aki no kure.

A branch shorn of leaves,
A crow perching on it--
This autumnal eve.

~haiku by Basho from Zen and Japanese Culture, D.T. Suzuki

Freedom

The freedom you look for is where you look from. - Jac O'Keeffe

When I cease to own [physical or emotional pain], I liberate myself from its bondage and see it simply as it is ~Tony Parsons

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the wingèd life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sunrise.

 ~ William Blake

Wondering

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,

"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.
— A.A. Milne

Peace

"Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not." ~Eckhart Tolle

"Without peace of mind, life is just a shadow of its possibilities." ~Jean Borysenko

"Cultivate peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. When that is done successfully, then everything else follows naturally." ~Robert M. Prisig

"People say 'I want peace.' If you remove I (ego), and your want (desire), you are left with peace." ~Sathya Sai Baba

“For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.” ~Larry Eisenberg

Reflection

image credit*

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection:

The water has no mind to receive their image.

~Chuang Tzu 

Another quote by Chuang Tzu appears on a Simply This post called "Butterfly Dream."

*This is not my photo.  Gratitude to Alanna@VanIsle of British Columbia, Canada for kindly making this image available at the Creative Commons at Flickr.

Cuckoo haiku

cuckoo! cuckoo!

meditating on that theme

day dawned

-Chiyo-ni 

~from Jane Reichhold's

AhaPoetry.com

Another version of the above haiku:

While I was musing on my theme,

Repeating "cuckoo," day has dawned.

hototogisu

hototogisu tote

akeni keri

~by kaga no chiyo (1703-1775)*

*As a young girl, she asked a well-known poet for lessons in Hokku.  He assigned her the most common, yet most difficult subject, hototogisu, and then rudely went into the next room to sleep.  At dawn, she handed him this "perfect" verse.  The master was humbled by a child. ~from The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology by Faubion Bowers

The sunrise photo is from October 24th 2010, looking towards the Rincon Mountains, east of Tucson, Arizona.  The bird appeared in front of the pinkish cloud the moment the picture was snapped.  Linking to Skywatch Friday a fun photo meme for enjoying skies from around the world.

Rose Hedge

across a rose fence--

a cat lover

a cat hater

~Kazuo Sato

How far can we see across the rose-hedge fence, beyond our own personal likes and dislikes, feelings for or against?  Can we be more like the rose hedge: neutral as nature, open to views from both sides of the fence and beyond?  This microcosmic haiku exposes the truth of the world situation and yet it somehow nudges us to imagine, as in the classic John Lennon song, "Imagine"...and go beyond it. ~commentary adapted from haiku mind by Patricia Donegan

The pink flowery hedge was found in Chicopee, Massachusetts in July.

Beyond the wind...

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.  ~Baba Ram Dass

 rock squirrel
charmed by woodland stories
whispered by the wind

Beyond the wind,
listen to the bamboo.
~Shibayama Zenkei

"Beyond the wind" generally refers to the realm beyond the illusory, material world, while listening to the bamboo is a reference to the fact that some species of bamboo grow so quickly that if one listens carefully, you can actually hear them growing.  ~Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment by Audrey Yoshiko Seo

Fallen leaves under the water

Mizu soko no
Iwa ni ochitsuku
Kono ha kana.

Under the water,
On the rock resting,
The fallen leaves.

This is by Joso (1661 - 1704), one of the chief disciples of Basho. Superficially and ordinarily, most of us are liable to think nothing of the fallen leaves of autumn finding their final resting place on the rocks in the stream.  The poet does not venture to think of anything beyond. He just sees them there and gives no intimation as to what he has in his mind. It is this very silence of the poet that makes the verse all the more eloquent.  ~from Zen and Japanese Culture by D.T. Suzuki

What do we know?

Fifteen quotes examining the nature of reality and how knowledge is acquired:

"Because of conceptualization, our sense-experiences inform us with an incorrect picture of the world.   When we see a mountain, we do not see it in its suchness, but we attach to it all kinds of ideas, sometimes purely intellectual, but frequently charged with emotionality.  When these envelop the mountain, it is transformed into something monstrous...Instead of living in a world presented to the Primary Nature in its nakedness, we live in an artificial, "cultured" one.  The pity is that we are not conscious of the fact." ~from Zen and Japanese Culture by D.T. Suzuki

"We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."  ~The Talmud 

"The map is not the territory."  ~Alfred Korzybski

"There are no facts, only interpretations."  ~Friedrich Nietzsche 

"We can all see how other people's BS (belief system or bullshit :p) makes them blind and "stupid" at times, but we find it very hard to notice how our own BS is doing the same to us. This is what anthropologists call 'acculturalization.'  Following Gurdjieff, I prefer to call it hypnosis... Every politician knows how to induce hypnosis, and very damned few people on the whole planet know how to de-hypnotize themselves. The world is not governed by facts or logic. It is governed by BS (belief systems)."  ~Robert Anton Wilson

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." ~Voltaire

"Your beliefs can be like fences that surround you. You must first see them or you will not even realize that you are not free, simply because you will not see beyond the fences. They will represent the boundaries of your experience."  ~from The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."  ~John Lennon

"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination."  ~Mark Twain

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."  ~Albert Einstein 

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."  ~William James

"When you question your stressful thoughts, you come to see that everything that has been troubling you is just a misunderstanding.  You realize that what you believe isn't necessarily so.  This is the beginning of freedom.  The Work always leaves you a kinder, clearer, happier human being." ~from Question Your Thinking, Change The World by Byron Katie

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." ~Arthur Schopenhauer

"The empiricist... thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing."  -George Santayana

"We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented, it's as simple as that."  ~The Truman Show

Hang Drum

This video was made in the highlands of Scotland. The song "Inner Voice"...



The Hang Drum is not actually a drum, but rather an idiophone, similar to a steelpan, but the sound is more mellow.  The Hang was developed ten years ago in Switzerland by PanArt.

From Wikipedia: There are many ways to produce sound out of a Hang that do not involve what many consider 'drumming'. The Hang-Makers and many veteran players instead regard the Hang as a complex holistic entity more likened to a "sound sculpture" than a typical drum.

Nazuna

 Nazuna's English name is Shepherd's Purse.

image by autan

Yoku mireba
Nazuna hana saku,
Kakine kana.

When closely inspected,
The nazuna is flowering
By the hedge.

Basho's attention was first awakened by something white by the roadside.  Wondering, he approached, and carefully examined it, and discovered that it was the flowering nazuna, ordinarily unnoticed by most passers-by.  The discovery must have called up a variety of feelings, on which he is not at all explicit in his seventeen syllables.  He leaves the pleasure of discovery and appreciation to the readers.

~from Zen and Japanese Culture by D.T. Suzuki

The Sound of Autumn

Autumn is come!
Though not visible
So clearly to the eyes,
One knows it by the sound
Of the wind as it blows.

~poem from Zen and Japanese Culture by D.T. Suzuki

Autumn takes its sweet time coming to the Sonoran Desert.  These pictures were taken yesterday by the creek.  With leaves gently rustling in the breeze, it felt like autumn, even though there was just a whisper of golden color on the trees.

Washing the dishes

 
Washing the dishes
is like bathing a baby Buddha.
The profane is the sacred.
Everyday mind is Buddha's mind.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

To my mind, the idea that doing the dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you are not doing them. Once you are standing in front of the sink with your sleeves rolled up and your hands in warm water, it really is not so bad. I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands. I know that if I hurry in order to go and have a cup of tea, the time will be unpleasant and not worth living. That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle. The dishes themselves and the fact that I am here washing them are miracles! Each bowl I wash, each poem I compose, each time I invite a bell to sound is a miracle, each has exactly the same value. One day, while washing a bowl, I felt that my movements were as sacred and respectful as bathing a newborn Buddha. If he were to read this, that newborn Buddha would certainly be happy for me, and not at all insulted at being compared with a bowl. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

When things fall apart...

Last weekend, we visited the little town of Oracle, Arizona for a running event.  While taking nature photos, I noticed this old dilapidated home and was touched by the beauty of its decomposition.  The writings of Pema Chödrön came to mind as well as a quote by Cezanne, "Everything we see falls apart, vanishes, doesn't it?"

"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy." ~Pema Chödrön

"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart