Jung’s Tower

«Ὁ Αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων, πεττεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη».

“Aion (Time, Eternity, the Eon) is a child at play, gambling; a child’s is the kingship.”

Heraclitus (fragment)

^^^

Τελεσφόρος διελαύνων τοὺς σκοτεινοὺς τοῦ κόσμου τόπους,

καὶ ὡς ἀστὴρ ἀναλάμπων ἐκ τοῦ βάθους,

ὁδηγεῖ «παρ’ Ἠελίοιο πύλας καὶ δῆμον ὀνείρων».

“Telesphorus (“the Accomplisher”) traverses the dark places of the world,

like a star flashing from the deep,

leading the way to the Gates of the Sun and the Land of Dreams”

Homer (the Odyssey)

… and if that perfectly still moment were to go on and on, forever,

would it not be as bidden in scripture,

ENTER THOU INTO (unspeakable) JOY?

(from the Confessions of Augustine)

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…A clean patch of ground after it rains
an ancient pine half-covered with moss
such scenes appear before us all
but how we use them is not the same

Stonehouse,
14th century Chinese hermit

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

…the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion.

It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept.

Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity.

My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not.

And what we have to recover is our original unity.

What we have to be is what we are.

Asian Journal of Thomas Merton

 

“Going into a wild field, not choosing,

Picking up whatever plant comes to hand,

Rootless but finding life,

Apart from the ground but not falling.”

Right before your eyes it has always been there…

why don’t you speak?

If you don’t know it in your daily life,

where then will you look for it?

Better find out.

Yuanwu, Zen Letters

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From the Record of Linji

“This Lone Brightness”

As I see it, there’s no Buddha, no living beings, no long ago, no now.

If you want to get it, you’ve already got it – it’s not something that requires time.

There’s no religious practice, no enlightenment, no getting anything,

no missing out on anything.

At no time is there any other Dharma than this.

Followers of the Way, this lone brightness before my eyes now,

this person plainly listening to me—

this person is unimpeded at any point but penetrates the ten directions,

free to do as you please in the threefold world.

Every place is clean and pure to you,

your light pierces the ten directions,

the ten thousand phenomena are a single thusness.

Therefore the more you search the farther away you get,

the harder you hunt the wider astray you go.

This is what I call the secret of the matter.

In your present activities, what is it you lack,

what is it that practice must mend?

What are you looking for?

This person of the Way who depends on nothing,

here before my eyes now listening to the Dharma –

your brightness shines clearly,

you have never lacked anything.

~

[freely adapted from Burton Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi]

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YOUR TRUE NATURE

Your true nature is something never lost to you

even in moments of delusion,

nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment.

Po Ch’uan Hsin Fa Yo

Zen master Huang Po

A Brief for the Defense

Childlikeness has to be restored with long years

of training in the art of self-forgetfulness.

When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not think.

He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky;

he thinks like the waves rolling on the ocean;

he thinks like stars illuminating the nightly heavens;

he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze.

Indeed he IS the showers, the ocean, the stars, the foliage.

D. T. SUZUKI

DRINKING WINE

5

I live here in this busy village without
all that racket that horses and carts stir up,

and you wonder how that could ever be.
Wherever the mind dwells apart is itself

a distant place. Picking chrysanthemums
at my east fence, I see South Mountain

far off; air lovely at dusk, birds in flight
going home. All this means something,

something absolute; whenever I start
to explain it, I forget words altogether.

T’AO CH’IEN

365-427

(trans. David Hinton)

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Jack Gilbert

~

Sweet Dream

(from the Song of Songs)

5 /2 I was asleep, but dreaming: The one I love was at the door, knocking and saying,

“My darling, my very own, my flawless dove, open the door for me! My head is drenched with evening dew.”

3 But I had already undressed and bathed my feet.

Should I dress again and get my feet dirty?

4 Then my darling’s hand reached to open the latch, and my heart stood still.

5 When I rose to open the door, my hands and my fingers dripped with perfume.

6 And I yearned for him while he spoke to me,

but when I opened the door, my darling had disappeared.

I searched and shouted, but I could not find him— there was no answer.

7 Then I was found by the guards patrolling the town and guarding the wall.

They beat me up and stripped off my robe.

8 Young women of Jerusalem,

if you find the one I love, please say to him, “She is weak with desire.”

9 Most beautiful of women, why is the one you love more special than others?

Why do you ask us to tell him how you feel?

10 He is handsome and healthy, the most outstanding among ten thousand.

11 His head is purest gold; his hair is wavy, black as a raven.

12 His eyes are a pair of doves bathing in a stream flowing with milk.

13 His face is a garden of sweet-smelling spices;

his lips are lilies dripping with perfume.

14 His arms are branches of gold covered with jewels;

his body is ivory decorated with sapphires.

15 His legs are columns of marble on feet of gold.

He stands there majestic like Mount Lebanon and its choice cedar trees.

16 His kisses are sweet. I desire him so much!

Young women of Jerusalem, he is my lover and friend.

~

6 /1 Most beautiful of women, tell us where he has gone. Let us help you find him.

2 My darling has gone down to his garden of spices, where he will feed his sheep and gather lilies.

3 I am his, and he is mine,

as he feeds his sheep among the lilies.

4 My dearest, the cities of Tirzah and Jerusalem are not as lovely as you.

Your charms are more powerful than all of the stars in the heavens.

5 Turn away your eyes— they make me melt.

Your hair tosses about as gracefully as goats coming down from Gilead.

6 Your teeth are whiter than sheep freshly washed; they match perfectly, not one is missing.

7 Behind your veil are hidden beautiful rosy cheeks.

8 What if I could have sixty queens, eighty wives, and thousands of others!

9 You would be my only choice, my flawless dove, the favorite child of your mother.

The young women, the queens,

and all the others tell how excited you are as they sing your praises:

10 “You are as majestic as the morning sky— glorious as the moon— blinding as the sun!

Your charms are more powerful than all the stars above.”

11 I went down to see if blossoms were on the walnut trees, grapevines, and fruit trees.

12 But in my imagination I was suddenly riding on a glorious chariot.

13 Dance! Dance! Beautiful woman from Shulam, let us see you dance!

Why do you want to see this woman from Shulam dancing with the others?

*

Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version ®.

Copyright © 1995 American Bible Society. Used by permission.

highlands

 

 

 

Peace

 

Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind rest at peace.

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.

~

 

Deep in the center of all that is changing is the unchanging.

Knowing the unchanging

as the source of all change is insight.

Trusting only in the changing,

deaf and blind to the unchanging, leads to disaster.

 

Knowing the true source,

the mind opens to the all-encompassing Reality.

With an open mind, you become openhearted.

Being openhearted, you act compassionately.

Being compassionate is to be one with the divine,

alive in the light of the ONE.

 

Being at one with the divine is to be at peace with everything.

Being at peace with everything is to experience the eternal.

And though the body dies,

peace that passes understanding

will never pass away.

 

Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind rest at peace.

 

OM, shanti shanti shanti

 

 

Adapted from, and inspired by, chapter 16 of the Tao Te Ching