quotes

Pilgrim…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

i listened to this song today and it was like listening to it for the first time. the song is titled, “Pilgrim” and is written by Enya and Roma Ryan. her music can be so sweeping and beautiful, i wonder if listeners are aware of the mindfulness, the awareness, the mysticism within Roma Ryan’s lyrics. great poetry.

peace ~
j

Pilgrim
by Enya

Pilgrim, how you journey
on the road you chose
to find out why the winds die
and where the stories go.
All days come from one day
that much you must know,
you cannot change what’s over
but only where you go.

One way leads to diamonds,
one way leads to gold,
another leads you only
to everything you’re told.
In your heart you wonder
which of these is true;
the road that leads to nowhere,
the road that leads to you.

Will you find the answer
in all you say and do?
Will you find the answer
In you?
Each heart is a pilgrim,
each one wants to know
the reason why the winds die
and where the stories go.
Pilgrim, in your journey
you may travel far,
for pilgrim it’s a long way
to find out who you are…

Pilgrim, it’s a long way
to find out who you are…

Pilgrim, it’s a long way
to find out who you are…

compassion in the face of hate…

~ jaysen ~ 2 Comments
Thich Nhat Hanh praying...
Thich Nhat Hanh praying...

dear friends ~

below is a poem that graces the first pages of Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “Calming The Fearful Mind: A Zen Response To Terrorism”.  it is the first Buddhist book i read and this autumn marks the anniversary of my reading it and the beginning of me following this path.

it speaks today, as it did then, to the very heart of how we see our interdependence – our relationship – to all others, even those who seem to be enemies.  we are seeing, in this election and attempted passage of propositions such as Prop 8, a not-so-subtle attack on those who are “other” to what we have been taught through ideology and religion is “normal”.

when faced with such hate, anger, or indifference as some of us are finding ourselves it is easy and even seems just to react with hate and anger in retaliation.  Buddhism teaches something different (and so do the teachings of Jesus Christ, even if Christianity as a religion sometimes fails to).

with his well known elegant, compassionate style Thich Nhat Hanh expresses this teaching of the Dharma in the following poem. 

be well friends and peace to you ~ j

Recommendation

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion-
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, 1965

a question for this moment…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

 

lyric from Coldplay’s song, “Clocks” ~

“am i part of the cure
or am i part of the disease?”

it could be said that ~
the cure is Love
the disease is Hate

perhaps this is a good question to ask ourselves in this moment…in every moment…

am i here to love?  am i here to hate?  what purpose am i serving?  the purpose of love?  the service of love?  the healing of love?  the peace of love?  or am i adding to hate, to hurt, to violence, to the despair of this world by my thoughts, my actions, my words?

~ j

words of another…

~ jaysen ~ 1 Comment

my friends ~

i haven’t been writing lately.  words, for the time, have escaped me.  i simply don’t have anything to say.  i did come across, today, a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh, however, which i’d like to share.

he wrote this poem after the town of Ben Tre had been bombed by U.S. forces during the Vietnam war.  this poem is about anger. i was taken back when i read it today. only hours earlier, i sat in the green-room at work (dealing with my own anger and hurt) with my face in my two hands…comforted as i simply would breathe in and out. now for Thay’s words ~

I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep my loneliness warm –
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.