Tag: tao

69.

In conflict it is better to be receptive
than aggressive, better to retreat a foot
than advance an inch.

This is called moving ahead without advancing,
capturing the enemy without attacking him.

There is no greater misfortune than
underestimating your opponent.
To underestimate your opponent is to
forsake your three treasures.

When your forces are engaged in conflict,
the one who fights with sorrow will triumph.

–Tao Te Ching, Translation by Brian Browne Walker

the poet drinks by moonlight

with the grey ghosts

with red eyes

until he pukes

he spits and cusses

at the birds

he pisses anywhere

he feels to leak

he kicks down doors 

seeking the face of his god

denying his existence

with venomous word

and dead thought

he shoots for the stars

anywhere he can find a vein

he wastes away

in a green haze

you seen god

he’s the flasher

on the corner

the priest who is waiting

the killer stalking prey

the deer shot in the heart

what fool would 

chase his own ass

the donkey wants 

the carrot 

not until he stops

does it swing his way

then a bus hits him

one day the poetic bum

fell down hard

laying there in the grass

a child sang a song

a flower bloomed

dogs barked

and for once 

the poet truly saw

through bloodshot eyes

and a bitchin headache

how much he hated life

how much he hated that song

when would it all stop

this is the best it gets

the way is no way

when you try to leave

you always arrive again

the poet drinks by moonlight 

and always ends up where 

he last felt his heart beat

A Spring Ode

You awaken as a child on the wheel of life, which leads to the world tree and the center of the Labyrinth.

Today, the Earth is reborn and I can see it out my window.

The trees leaf as ice crystals form and lightening cracks in the air.

The Flowers sing in their pots filled with reminding.

The weeds seek to steal the light and water.

And the birds come and go freely, enjoying a drink or a meal.

One can learn the cycles of life if they stop and listen and watch.

We are invited to participate even.

So however you celebrate it, through whatever filter you like, life and it’s promise is renewed today in time, rejoice!

Falling Blossoms

No rants

No raves

The world is stellar

And cool blue

Things ring true

No arguments

No harm wished

No opinions

Things change

Minds roil

No head trips

Drop them

Disperse the cloud

Cling to no-thing

Lose no-thing

Remember

Hummingbird Songs

Had a visitation by the Green Man. This morning I read a Taoist meditation saying nature speaks through the birds and flowers. Read this poem below as well. Big medicine. By Lauren Raine, 

The Green Man

Remember me, try to remember,
I am the laughing man with eyes like leaves.
When you think that winter will never end,
I will come.
You will feel my breath,
a vine caressing your foot.
I am the blue eye of the crocus,
opening in the snow,
a trickle of water, a calling bird,
a shaft of light among the trees.

Life Starts Clapping

Wherever
God lays His glance
Life starts
Clapping.

The
Myriad
Creatures grab their instruments
And join the
Song.

Whenever love makes itself known
Against another
Body

The
Jewel in the eye starts
To

Dance.

— From The Gift by Hafiz

Synchronicity And Flow

Mandala_Golden_Flower_Jung
Mandala Golden Flower from Carl Jung Ex Patient

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what is in us.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had to reblog this below from An Accidental Anarchist, it was a question and answer in one for me when I read it. It is from an ex patient of Carl Jung. I think it stands pretty well on it’s own, those who read my blog, know of what it speaks. Interesting to see and experience the commonality of experience across a century. I echo the patient below, what a fool I was, but I still am today!

“Out of evil, much good has come to me.
By keeping quiet, repressing nothing,
remaining attentive, and by accepting
reality – taking things as they are, and not
as I wanted them to be – by doing all this,
unusual knowledge has come to me,
and unusual powers as well, such as I could
never have imagined before.

I always thought that when we accepted things
they overpowered us in some way or other.
This turns out not to be true at all, and it is
only by accepting them that one can assume
and attitude towards them.

So now I intend to play the game of life, being
receptive to whatever comes to me, good and
bad, sun and shadow forever alternating, and,
in this way, also accepting my own nature with
its positive and negative sides. Thus everything
becomes more alive to me.

What a fool I was! How I tried to force everything
to go according to way I thought it ought to.”

— an EX patient of C. G. Jung (Alchemical Studies, pg 47)

Fellowship

image

“If The Way
were about being
a student of something,
it wouldn’t be alive in the world.
It lives because certain people
say to themselves, “All this
teaching is just for me.
I am the living
expression
of this.”

This isn’t arrogant.
This is humbly keeping the buddhas,
Lao Tzu, Lalla, Rumi, Suzuki, Bahauddin,
Yuanwu, all of them, alive in the world.
Only you can accomplish this.
You are the only one.”

                     – Wei Wu Wei

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking less about yourself.“

Abundance

image.jpeg

In the search
for enlightenment,
there is an ever-present
certainty that there is more to do,
someone else who holds the
secret, another state to
attain.

In the
finding of it,
there is the comical
revelation that not one
of those things was
ever true.

                                   – Wei Wu Wei

The Middle Way

“Before emptying, there must be fullness.
Before shrinking, there must be expanding.
Before falling, there must be ascent.
To destroy something, lead it to its extreme.
To preserve something, keep to the middle.”

                                          – Deng Ming-Dao

Cobalt Blue

Sleek sky of cobalt blue;

Water like nectar satisfies deeply.

Air sweeter than the best perfume;

Sunlight warms a grateful cat.

– Deng Ming-Dao