The years that lie behind you, with all their struggles and pains, will in time be remembered only as the way that led to your new life.

Henri J. M. Nouwen 

 

Dawn from Placitas Open Space

 

I love the joys of the moutains
wandering completely free
feeding a crippled body another day
thinking thoughts that go nowhere
sometime I open an old sutra
more often I climb a stone tower
and peer down a thousand foot cliff
or up where clouds curl around
where the windblown winter moon
looks like a lone-flying crane.

COLD MOUNTAIN
From
The Collected Song of Cold Mountain 

 

 Till  now
I thought that only 
others die -
that such happiness
should fall to me!

Ryou
Japanese Death Poems 

 

Everyone is so afraid of death,  
but the real sufis just laugh:
nothing tyrannizes their hearts.
What strikes the oyster shell doesn't damage the pearl.

Rumi 

 

 

 

the moon a sign

this way, sir, to enter

a traveler's inn

 

Matsuo Basho 

Full Sturgeon Moon setting this morning

 

 

 

 

  As for me, I delight in the everyday Way,

Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves. 

Here in the wilderness I am completely free, 

With my friends, the white clouds, idling forever.

There are roads, but they do not reach the world;

Since I am mindless, who can rouse my thoughts?

On a bed of stone I sit, alone in the night, 

While the round moon climbs up Cold Mountain.

 

Hanshan

from

Zen Poems 

 

 

 

 

 

..Stillness: One of the doors

into the temple. 

 

Mary Oliver