a reflection without a mirror

The tongue cannot taste what it utters.

In the famous Zen simile, the subject is like a hand that is there for grasping all objects, but which cannot grasp itself. 

Deep beliefs set up our basic orientation to the world, and ourselves.  A deep belief is always in the background shaping our experiences of and responses to the world.  Our beliefs are like our eyes.  Just as we are not aware of our own eyes when we see, similarly we are not aware of our beliefs shaping our experience.  (Peter Fenner)Lakota warriors had a deep reverence for the mysteries of life.  That is where their power and sense of freedom comes from.   To the Lakota everything was sacred.  Even the enemy is sacred.  They believe in the interconnectedness of all life.  There is no separation—only in the mind.

However far you may travel in this world, you will still occupy the same volume of space.  (Traditional Ur-Bororo Saying)

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes. (Marcel Proust)

To a foot in a shoe, the whole world seems paved with leather.  (The Hitopadesa)With great beliefs comes great excuses’ (Don Herzog)

The best day of my life—my rebirthday, so to speak—when I was found I had no head. . . . what happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular: I stopped thinking, I forgot who and what I was.  It was as if I had been born, brand new, mindless, innocent of all memories.  There existed only the NOW.  It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole where a head should have been, was no ordinary vacancy . . . it was very much occupied.  It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything—room for trees, grass, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snow peaks like a row of clouds.  I had lost a head and gained a world.  (D.E. Harding)

bowl blunder

A Zen story tells of a master who, on handing a beautifully lacquered bowl to a monk, asked, “What’s the most important part of this bowl.” The monk carefully examined the detailed and delicate gold work, the polish and sheen of the bowl’s surface and finally admitted he didn’t know. “This part”, the master said and with a sweep of his hand indicated the inner volume of the bowl.

Nothing requires more space than is available here.

hoodwinking greatness

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

(William Blake, Auguries of Innocence)

The grand delusion of greatness is a scentless flower that promises us the nugatory smell of rotten flesh.  

To be infatuated by greatness, there is only one cure: a generous serving of banality. 

Every something is an echo of nothing (John Cage).    Greatness is an echo of ‘ness’.   How easily human beings are swayed, inspired, distracted and seduced by greatness.   And that is our weakness.   The great thing about everything is that it does not last.  So, do not delight yourself in nibbling at the superfluities and excrescencies of greatness. 

Greatness does not secure you immortality.   Immortality is just a crack on the sofa.   You can only sit on it so long before it squeaks.  Just remember that all our accomplishments, no matter how we stretch or inflate them, is still nothing compared to the flux and restlessness of the Universe.   

So, are you ready to die, rot and disappear into the dust and be ultimately forgotten? Therein lies our greatness.   Or do you wish to continue boring all those who you greatly aspire to?

Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately it is within no one’s reach (E. M. Cioran).
 

in honor of

a kind old sage
of thirty-three or five
who amidst vast floods in Bangladesh
touched and smiled into the eyes
of each adult and starving child when I asked in tears,
“how can you smile?”
he said, “that’s all I have to give”
then taught me to sing
to the withering
and demonstrated how to live

(Happy, ‘Uncivilized Ecstasies’)

Knowledge and achievements matter little if we do not yet know how to touch the heart of another and have a heart that can be touched.   When you touch or become touched by something or someone, your heart begins to expand.  Little by little, as your heart experiences greater expansiveness, the longest journey in life, the journey from the head to the heart, becomes a walking reality.  One step at a time, one heart at a time, one heart-beat at at time.   The world is only as big as our heart.