From Parabola:
ARCS
Photograph by Brian English, "Kamakura Hand."
“Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke
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Photograph: John Loengard, "T.S. Eliot," Cambridge, MA, 1956
V
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
—T.S. Eliot, from "Preludes" 1917
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vilhelm Hammershøi, "Sunbeams or Sunshine. Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams," 1900
“Samsara literally means “wandering-on.” Many people think of it as the Buddhist name for the place where we currently live. But in the early Buddhist texts, it’s the answer, not to the question, “Where are we?” but to the question, “What are we doing?” Instead of a place, it’s a process: the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them. As one world falls apart, you create another one and go there. At the same time, you bump into other people who are creating their own worlds, too.
The process can sometimes be enjoyable. In fact, it would be perfectly innocuous if it didn’t entail so much suffering. The worlds we create keep caving in and killing us. Moving into a new world requires effort: not only the pains and risks of taking birth, but also the hard knocks - mental and physical - that come from going through childhood into adulthood, over and over again.”
— Thanissaro Bhikkhu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photograph: Photograph: Dynamosquito on Flickr, "Eternity," The ceramic tile mosaic composing the roof of Persian poet Hafiz’s tomb in Shiraz, province of Fars, Iran, April 2008.
Eternity
"Eternity is not infinity.
It is not a long time.
It does not begin at the end of time.
It does not run parallel to time.
In its entirety it always was.
In its entirety it will always be.
It its entirely present always."
— Wendell Berry. Thank you to, The Beauty We Love.
ARCS
Photograph by Brian English, "Kamakura Hand."
“Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photograph: John Loengard, "T.S. Eliot," Cambridge, MA, 1956
V
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
—T.S. Eliot, from "Preludes" 1917
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vilhelm Hammershøi, "Sunbeams or Sunshine. Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams," 1900
“Samsara literally means “wandering-on.” Many people think of it as the Buddhist name for the place where we currently live. But in the early Buddhist texts, it’s the answer, not to the question, “Where are we?” but to the question, “What are we doing?” Instead of a place, it’s a process: the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them. As one world falls apart, you create another one and go there. At the same time, you bump into other people who are creating their own worlds, too.
The process can sometimes be enjoyable. In fact, it would be perfectly innocuous if it didn’t entail so much suffering. The worlds we create keep caving in and killing us. Moving into a new world requires effort: not only the pains and risks of taking birth, but also the hard knocks - mental and physical - that come from going through childhood into adulthood, over and over again.”
— Thanissaro Bhikkhu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photograph: Photograph: Dynamosquito on Flickr, "Eternity," The ceramic tile mosaic composing the roof of Persian poet Hafiz’s tomb in Shiraz, province of Fars, Iran, April 2008.
Eternity
"Eternity is not infinity.
It is not a long time.
It does not begin at the end of time.
It does not run parallel to time.
In its entirety it always was.
In its entirety it will always be.
It its entirely present always."
— Wendell Berry. Thank you to, The Beauty We Love.
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