I want to be solid and shiny, don’t you? I want to be solid and shiny I want to be solid and shiny I want to be solid and shiny, don’t you? As solid and shiny as steel Or maybe even more Like the light that reflects Like the shining heart Shining for ever more Shining From the silence Softly, subtly, lovingly showing us the way for so often we are blind blind to our own light of truth and of love yet opening the blinds to our heart window we glimpse a light within a love of truth and a truth of love and we will look for the light Breathing in Passed his fear A bundle of lies As thick as thieves Breathing into the dark body-house Descending the stair of the watery air As quiet as a mouse Toward the light the light inside ever bright Video Versionhe was in a playful mood although the garden hose was not the most exciting thing in the world the composition of the scene looked right with the shadow and with the mark on the floor appearing in a sense as though it were the clothing of the humble hose he took a picture for fun dwelling a little longer on the scene his mind went surprisingly quiet the sense of order in the scene seemed to be gently stilling his mind he also began to see a similar sense of order elsewhere in the scene when the angle was right he could not explain what it was that was right and the fact that he could not explain seemed to be part of the reason for his silent mind somewhere he remembered somebody telling him that computers don’t understand such things as artistic composition perhaps the computer part of his mind could also not understand ‘maybe this is the way out of the never-ending computer mind, ‘but I had better not touch anything,’ he thought ‘otherwise I will be trying to order the whole world and I couldn’t do that, maybe just in my own room,’ he thought he paused and sat down something rather monumental was arising in his mind he was realising that he had been trying to put the world in order all his life ‘so is the answer to do nothing? no, that is not right the world needs to have some order for us to be safe,’ ‘putting things in order is part of looking after them, isn’t it’ ‘but I can’t put everything in order so what must I do to find peace’ ‘I can do what I can, changing what I can change and have to accept what I cannot’ he sat a while longer ‘and if I can see a deeper sense of order than the colours and the shapes even deeper than a moral sense if I can see that everywhere then I will be at peace, such is the peace of true Dhamma where we see everything as natural,’ ‘but seeing Dhamma is like finding order through peace rather than finding peace through order,’ he thought Video versionNever give up There is always hope There is always hope Even in the darkest night There is always hope Even if we lose the fight There is always hope Even when we can’t cope There is even hope When there is no hope There is always hope As free as the birds There is always hope Behind all the words There is always hope Like the blue sky There is always hope Without asking ‘why’ We just don’t find hope by holding on But by letting go And coming back to the heart That patiently goes with the flow For in the heart of true love There is always hope Hope as if from up above And we realise that there is always hope And there will always be hope Where there is true love There is hope, of course, in the love When it is ‘warts and all’ It shall not fall And yet the greatest hope lies In love’s greatest truth That truly flies That raises a roof High up above Over that love For then we will have found our real home No longer to roam A home that fits like a glove And where is this truth to be found? On the solid ground Right there In silent prayer For silence holds the truth Now and forever more The truth of suffering Knocking on the door The truth of suffering In itself free of suffering The truth of suffering accepted That makes us let go The truth of suffering That, deep down, we all know Video versionThere is hope There is hope down on the old farm... there is hope in the past the heart wood and the history there is hope in the future in the swallows return and in what we can learn There is hope to be found In food rising out of the ground There is hope, life goes on There is hope in past and future Yet in the present there is more hope still There is hope in love and care As there is hope in the air In fact there is always hope If we look in the right place There is always hope In the light and the space Which remain forever the same There is hope just in hope In the heart there can always be hope In the light and space of the heart Which may remain forever the same (And, believe me if you will, This is not just a hippy mind game!) Video VersionIt’s never too late to be kind to the world it’s never too late to love a true love is a simple life cherishing all beings with a heart like the sky it’s never too late to love for our own sake it’s never too late for goodness sake it’s never too late even if it’s too late to save the world it’s never too late to be kind to the world it’s never too late to love and if we can let go and go with the flow we will always be able to love Video versionThis is part 5 of the "Nature Series". 1. A walk in nature 2. Finding our place in nature 3. Hello nature 4. Our goodbye nature 5. It's never too late to love the world 6. True love for the world Inner evolutionmind is quick
but matter is slow bound together they spin such is form life getting warm under a blanket of moss toss and turn form has its law and law has form they are One spark in the dark primordial dogs bark simplicity finds stable form complexity may falter as foundations alter rocking the deck on Noah’s Ark the law is within the heart within the law in the between within and the within between the nest the sky and the lark and what is outside the law shall perish for sure deep sea shark unable to make its mark and speaking from the heart not of the part but of the whole the breath is the voice of the soul in and out, life and death in every breath breathing in a song above birds held a gentle sway over dawn light a prayer beyond words a beginning for heaven trembled with delight and light blazed where beetles raised their wings breathing out light dims as the beetle gently swims and as the beetle gently dies the light cries tears from heavenly cloud for the beetle’s black shell holds the rainbow hidden so well the gods were so very proud thus feelings from heaven may descend to embrace the earth, my friend the feelings from earth remain in the sodden turf family album tea and cakes aunty slurps budgie chirps and the feelings in the mind middle remain between forever between like light and the swish of the fish in the deep stirs the proverbial sleep of the man who slumbers in a heap what a creep for the glorious fish in their own sweet time and in their own sweet way will have their day the feelings of the seen and the unseen and of the space between sweet ideas wrapped in goodness sticky in the angel’s pocket and the feelings between the seen and the unseen forever between where the heart no longer needs to be but may arise knowingly between all and everything continuously in this our sentient universe of monkly whispers veiled vespers in the night beetled rainbows and how, at dawn, shall the light meet the feeling air? when there is no wish in the prayer and where words question words that is where the light meets the air unspeaking and unspoken awoken light upon light salvation rainbowed beetles salvation in the singing wind and salvation in the rolling tear of lost loves for love is lost between heaven and earth and between between and love is found on the ground so simply seen the trees stood waiting for the beetles until, opening at their feet in the ecstasy of decay, they finally won the sky life goes back and forth for all it is worth and goes high and low above and below our inner measure and these dimensions meet at the humble heart with its humble feet standing so still so simply still like God… silver sword secrets symbols wrapped in broaches clasping cloaks the Winter servant crouches and points a trembling finger there they shall return just as the prayers of the dead linger on the lips of living men they shall return such is their dispensation the women wait without such words wiser from the passing seasons over the granary floor and from the honesty of children until they return strangers to the land they left so long and to the land they now leave behind until they return to the hearth of the heart... flint spark in the dark eye window glint inner mark remembered only the ‘why’ widow unmoved, dismembered denied there was life in that summer night fire her grief finally honoured by the lesser warmth of a hazy Autumn sun where the wind rocked trees and branches waved without meaning a gentle between time discarding memories like fallen leaves nevertheless season’s feelings are reasons enough for some ‘Spring will come,’ she said and sure enough, my friend Winter’s end brought new life life of truth a bride of beginnings of eternal youth where only the prayers meet in the true home of truth to be wrapped in children and blessed for the journey by the humble ‘why’ widow... hope, the nearer prayer was felt before the open door he knelt knowing not what lay ahead as dawn crept across the floor nothing had been said by the living or the dead ‘where must I head?’ he said this further prayer whispered by the wind bore a familiar scent he placed his palms together and out of the door he went flower familiar over many an hour lovingly grown yet never really known rose in the heart the garden rose, the dancer the double meaning was already his answer ‘there is nowhere to go’ he said ‘the rose inside is nearer than any prayer’ he said his heart would graze the salmon grass and fly lizard clouds to little bird stars before bed his inner children as useless as babies nipples and slowly, slowly as sweet as their toes as tingling as fingers inwardly refining quick silver lining soldered-silk-sky-train kite-string-ribbon pain of glass hope over wet bar of soap over graves of calipers and crutches over everything on the journey of inner evolution our goodbye nature is deep inside our goodbye nature can never be tied our goodbye nature is as free as a bird our goodbye nature knows the absurd for it is our goodbye nature that says hello that lives and loves with nowhere else to go Video versionThis is part 4 of the "Nature Series". 1. A walk in nature 2. Finding our place in nature 3. Hello nature 4. Our goodbye nature 5. It's never too late to love the world 6. True love for the world A poem by Ajahn Kalyāno about how he sees meditation as an invaluable a part of caring for those who are sick or dying: From Nurse to Chaplain – from care to prayer there I was with the bandage and the crutch listening ears tissues for tears there I always was for all those years at the time and every time it meant so much I can still smell the savlon, the soap and the desperate hope... there I was with the pooh I always knew and the blood, always a surprise sharpening the eyes there I was in the rolling tears of lost loves and in the niggling fears now it doesn’t mean so much the world of touch meaning more is a softness in the eye which knows a softness so sweet and always new like baby’s toes a softness where a given prayer giggles and wriggles itself free free to simply be such that a prayer is always there in the air a prayer that knows ‘there is life and death in every breath as it flows’ as a bandage or a crutch it doesn’t mean much it is heavy to the touch yet the prayer is there where light meets the air at the touch of light and the lightest touch such is the suchness pure and bright of the heart where we can go if we can let go and where we need never part The open owl Open The owl's soft, silent wings Open The owl's wide, wise eyes Opening the pale grey dusk Beyond the crimson sunset The rocks whisper the rocks whisper a way the trees forget over growing for the sun is pleasing and their masters are lost the forest is empty there was another life in the master’s way the trees know not here in the wilderness the trees are lonely and dream of the garden (for a garden they would be tended by loving hands their roots growing deeper the sun slanting under their boughs to warm their feet) yet the trees know not their loneliness or their dreams they are the silence that shall receive the work of the word and hold the meaning but first there must be a new path they must beckon with their humble silence the hearts of man men shall come there is solace in the silence for they are part of nature they too have forgotten and would remember they have lost their home and would return so that death has nowhere else to take them they will serve the garden which will teach them in turn beauty and transience of life they shall learn born will be the garden of the soul and mankind will have found in truth a far greater whole where death shall have no dominion |