“All religions seek to demonstrate the reality of God through symbols. These symbols are seen as pointers to a transcendent reality beyond themselves. Symbols are necessary, for they make the reality present to us. Every word we use is a symbol. God is a symbol. These are symbols we use to point to something which cannot be described or expressed. The use of symbols points to the mystery of human life: that is, we are pushed beyond ourselves, beyond our limits… Each religion has its sacred and revered symbols. A contemplative awareness will take us beyond all these to the one reality with which we seek unity.” Bede Griffiths (1906 – 1993), Benedictine monk and yogi, also known as Swami Dayananda
“When all thoughts are exhausted I slip into the wood 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.” Ryokan (c.1758 – 1831), Zen master
Your Life is a Mirror – a Sufi story from an unknown author
“A stranger enters a village, and immediately looks for the Sufi master to ask advice. He says, ‘I’m thinking of moving to live in this village. What can you tell me about the people who live here?’ And the Sufi master replies, ‘What can you tell me about the people who live where you come from?’ ‘Ah,’ says the visitor angrily. ‘They are terrible people. They are robbers, cheats and liars. They stab each other in the back.’ ‘Well now,’ says the Sufi master. ‘Isn’t that a coincidence? That’s exactly what they’re like here.’ So the man departs the village and is never seen there again. Soon, another stranger enters the village, and he too seeks out the Sufi master for advice. He says, ‘I’m thinking of moving to live in this village. What can you tell me about the people who live here?’ And the Sufi master replies, ‘What can you tell me about the people who live where you come from?’ ‘Ah,’ says the visitor in fond remembrance, ‘They are wonderful people. They’re kind, gentle and compassionate. They look after each other.’ ‘Well now,’ says the Sufi master, ‘Isn’t that a coincidence? That’s exactly what they’re like here.’”
“And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty. And he answered: Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.” And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.” But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.” And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”
In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.” And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.” All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
Living Poetry by Christopher Chase “Every body has a story. Every atom has a story. Go back 100 million years and your atoms were there in dragonfly wings, in trees and oceans, in prehistoric forests, as steam swirling from dinosaur dung… Go back 6 billion years and most of “you” was floating as intergalactic dust, or buried deep in the cores of long gone stars… Even as recently as a year ago, most of the trillions of atoms now in your body were parts of clouds and rivers, falling as rain, living in leaves, trees plants and soil… Science is art, Nature is like music. Every atom has a story. At the deepest levels we are works of Cosmic Art, living poetry.” Art by Brian Kirhagis
From The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation by Thich Nhat Hahn,
“Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we don’t know how to breathe, smile, and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping.”
As well as being American Independence Day, today is the anniversary of Transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau moving into his log cabin in the woods at Walden Pond in 1845. In Walden he wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
“A candle is a small thing. But one candle can light another. And see how its own light increases, as a candle gives its flame to the other. You are such a light.”
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live. When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother. So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
Hermann Hesse (1877 – 1962), Swiss novelist, painter, poet, and winner of the Novel prize for literature, born on this day.
King Edward Street Chapel 