Allspirit

Tag: butterfly

  • Look into Your Hand

    From Peace is Every Step

    By Thich Nhat Hanh

    I have a friend who is an artist. Before he left Vietnam
    forty years ago, his mother held his hand and told him,
    “Whenever you miss me, look into your hand, and you will
    see me immediately.” How penetrating these simple, sincere
    words! Over the years, my friend looked into his hand many times.

    The presence of his mother is not just genetic. Her spirit, her
    hopes, and her life are also in him. When he looks into his hand,
    he can see thousands of generations before him and thousands
    of generations after him. He can see that he exists not only in
    the evolutionary tree branching along the axis of time, but also
    in the network of interdependent relations. He told me that he
    never feels lonely.

    When my niece came to visit me last summer, I offered her “Look
    into Your Hand” as a subject for her meditation. I told her that
    every pebble, every leaf, and every butterfly are present in her
    hand.

    Read selected poems from Thich Nhat Hanh

    Read quotations and excerpts from Thich Nhat Hanh

    More Buddhist writings on Allspirit

     

  • Zen Poetry

    Zen Master Ryokan

    From Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf translated by John Stevens

    Thoughts

    When all thoughts
    Are exhausted
    I slip into the woods
    And gather
    A pile of shepherd’s purse.

    Like the little stream
    Making its way
    Through the mossy crevices
    I, too, quietly
    Turn clear and transparent.
    no-mind

     

    The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;
    The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.
    The flower opens, the butterfly comes;
    The butterfly comes, the flower opens.
    I don’t know others,
    Others don’t know me.
    By not-knowing we follow nature’s course.

    Lazy

    Too lazy to be ambitious,
    I let the world take care of itself.
    Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
    a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
    Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
    Listening to the night rain on my roof,
    I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

     

     

     

    The following are all from: Beyond Self: 108 Korean Zen Poems

    by Ko Un

    THE HERMIT

    Jang Ku-Song the hermit was busy shitting
    when he heard frogs croaking. It made him
    recite

    The croaking of frogs on moonlit nights in early spring
    pierces the world from end to end, makes us all
    one family.

    Look, if you’ve had your shit,
    wipe yourself and get out of here.

    THE LOTUS SUTRA

    The Lotus Sutra. Ultimate reality.
    So far
    you’ve been bashing me badly.
    Now
    I’ll cudgel you, bastard.
    Oh! Ouch!
    Take that too.
    Oh! Ouch!
    Oh! Ouch!

    The Lotus Sutra dashed away.
    Fields open wide, once the farmers
    have gone.
    A SMILE

    Shakyamuni held up a lotus
    so Kashyapa smiled.
    Not at all.
    The lotus smiled
    so Kashyapa smiled.

    Nowhere was Shakyamuni!

    WHY KILL?

    Let be. Please, let be.
    Kill Buddha
    if you meet him?
    Kill mother and father
    if you meet them? Why kill?
    Things made of clay all fall to bits
    once soaked by monsoon rains.

    ANANDA

    Even Shakyamuni could never tame Ananda
    but Kashyapa kicked him out and tamed him.
    Throw away all you know.
    Throw away all you don’t know.
    Then and only then one star shines bright.

    A SHOOTING STAR

    Wow! You recognized me.

     

    More Zen writings on Allspirit

  • Fireflies

    By Rabindranath Tagore

    I touch God in my song
    as the hill touches the far-away sea
    with its waterfall.
    The butterfly counts not months but moments,
    and has time enough.

    Let my love, like sunlight, surround you
    and yet give you illumined freedom.

    Love remains a secret even when spoken,
    for only a lover truly knows that he is loved.

    Emancipation from the bondage of the soil
    is no freedom for the tree.

    In love I pay my endless debt to thee
    for what thou art.

    Read more poems from Rabindranath Tagore

    Index of poets on Allspirit

     

  • A little road…

     

    Emily Dickinson

    A little road not made of man,
    Enabled of the eye,
    Accessible to thill of bee,
    Or cart of butterfly.

    If town it have, beyond itself,
    ‘T is that I cannot say;
    I only sigh,–no vehicle
    Bears me along that way.

  • If Not A Poem

    If poetry is painting your moments
    on the canvas of your heart,
    if poetry is your soul taking you
    to where your body is incapable
    of traveling but your soul gallops to
    with no limits, then,
    this is my lot.
    My lot of touching life through
    expressing feelings that can be
    dreams, or can this limit be a dream?
    A nightmare? A mirage?
    If my seeing my right foot
    entering the pond of fresh water
    while a swan is passing by peacefully,
    if the first touch of water
    bursts life in me,
    if I can inhale the wild herbs
    the fresh greenery
    the wet forest,
    then, this has to be a poem.
    Maybe not professional
    with the choice of words, grammar
    or structure. But the swan
    that was passing, the water lilies,
    the colorful butterfly on the violet,
    the playful robin, the poetry
    in this raving silence, and God,
    no, none of them care.
    So this is my lot.
    I bless it and thank it and
    leave the “naming” to you.

    Hydeh Aubon (1/19/08)