Going into gaps

Source: Favim

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. 

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have "not gone up into the gaps." The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.

~ Annie Dillard

Going into gaps

Source: Favim

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. 

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have "not gone up into the gaps." The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.

~ Annie Dillard

Action and Non-Action

Source: Favim

The non-action of the wise man is not inaction.
It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything.
The sage is quiet because he is not moved,  
Not because he wills to be quiet.  
Still water is like glass.
You can look in it and see the bristles on your chin.
It is a perfect level;
A carpenter could use it.
If water is so clear, so level,
How much more the spirit of man?  
The heart of the wise man is tranquil.  
It is the mirror of heaven and earth  
The glass of everything.
Emptiness, stillness, tranquillity, tastelessness,
Silence, non-action: this is the level of heaven and earth.  
This is perfect Tao. Wise men find here  
Their resting place.
Resting, they are empty.

From emptiness comes the unconditioned.
From this, the conditioned, the individual things.  
So from the sage’s emptiness, stillness arises:
From stillness, action. From action, attainment.
From their stillness comes their non-action, which is also action
And is, therefore, their attainment.
For stillness is joy. Joy is free from care
Fruitful in long years.
Joy does all things without concern:
For emptiness, stillness, tranquillity, tastelessness,  
Silence, and non-action
Are the root of all things.

~ Chuang Tzu

Translated by Thomas Merton

Action and Non-Action

Source: Favim

The non-action of the wise man is not inaction.
It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything.
The sage is quiet because he is not moved,  
Not because he wills to be quiet.  
Still water is like glass.
You can look in it and see the bristles on your chin.
It is a perfect level;
A carpenter could use it.
If water is so clear, so level,
How much more the spirit of man?  
The heart of the wise man is tranquil.  
It is the mirror of heaven and earth  
The glass of everything.
Emptiness, stillness, tranquillity, tastelessness,
Silence, non-action: this is the level of heaven and earth.  
This is perfect Tao. Wise men find here  
Their resting place.
Resting, they are empty.

From emptiness comes the unconditioned.
From this, the conditioned, the individual things.  
So from the sage’s emptiness, stillness arises:
From stillness, action. From action, attainment.
From their stillness comes their non-action, which is also action
And is, therefore, their attainment.
For stillness is joy. Joy is free from care
Fruitful in long years.
Joy does all things without concern:
For emptiness, stillness, tranquillity, tastelessness,  
Silence, and non-action
Are the root of all things.

~ Chuang Tzu

Translated by Thomas Merton

When the Shoe Fits

Ch'ui the draftsman

Could draw more perfect circles freehand

Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth

Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind

Was meanwhile free and without concern

With what he was doing.

No application was needed

His mind was perfectly simple

And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits

The foot is forgotten,

When the belt fits

The belly is forgotten,

When the heart is right

"For" and "against" are forgotten.

No drives no compulsions,

No needs, no attractions:

Then your affairs

Are under control.

You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right

And you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.

The right way to go easy

Is to forget the right way

And forget that the going is easy.

~ Chuang Tzu

(Translated by Thomas Merton)

When the Shoe Fits

Ch'ui the draftsman

Could draw more perfect circles freehand

Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth

Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind

Was meanwhile free and without concern

With what he was doing.

No application was needed

His mind was perfectly simple

And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits

The foot is forgotten,

When the belt fits

The belly is forgotten,

When the heart is right

"For" and "against" are forgotten.

No drives no compulsions,

No needs, no attractions:

Then your affairs

Are under control.

You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right

And you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.

The right way to go easy

Is to forget the right way

And forget that the going is easy.

~ Chuang Tzu

(Translated by Thomas Merton)

In Silence

Photo credit: kconnors from morguefile.com

Be still.

Listen to the stones of the wall.

Be silent, they try

to speak your

name.

Listen

to the living walls.

Who are you?

Who

are you? Whose

silence are you?

Who (be quiet)

are you (as these stones

are quiet). Do not

think of what you are

still less of

what you may one day be.

Rather

be what you are (but who?)

be the unthinkable one

you do not know.

O be still, while

you are still alive,

and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)

to your own being,

speaking by the unknown

that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them

to be my own silence:

and this is difficult. The whole

world is secretly on fire. The stones

burn, even the stones they burn me.

How can a man be still or

listen to all things burning?

How can he dare to sit with them

when all their silence is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton

________________________________________

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation... tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

~ Jean Arp

In Silence

Photo credit: kconnors from morguefile.com

Be still.

Listen to the stones of the wall.

Be silent, they try

to speak your

name.

Listen

to the living walls.

Who are you?

Who

are you? Whose

silence are you?

Who (be quiet)

are you (as these stones

are quiet). Do not

think of what you are

still less of

what you may one day be.

Rather

be what you are (but who?)

be the unthinkable one

you do not know.

O be still, while

you are still alive,

and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)

to your own being,

speaking by the unknown

that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them

to be my own silence:

and this is difficult. The whole

world is secretly on fire. The stones

burn, even the stones they burn me.

How can a man be still or

listen to all things burning?

How can he dare to sit with them

when all their silence is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton

________________________________________

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation... tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

~ Jean Arp

Balances

Photo: Norah Head Ghost at Sunrise!!!! by maureen_g

in life

one is always

balancing

like we juggle our mothers 

against our fathers

or one teacher 

against another

(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt 

to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence 

or the funky honkies down the street

and lately I've begun wondering 

if you're trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night 

and do things alone together

and I've begun

(as a reaction to a feeling) 

to balance

the pleasure of loneliness

against the pain

of loving you

~ Nikki Giovanni

______________________________________

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

~ Thomas Merton

Balances

Photo: Norah Head Ghost at Sunrise!!!! by maureen_g

in life

one is always

balancing

like we juggle our mothers 

against our fathers

or one teacher 

against another

(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt 

to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence 

or the funky honkies down the street

and lately I've begun wondering 

if you're trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night 

and do things alone together

and I've begun

(as a reaction to a feeling) 

to balance

the pleasure of loneliness

against the pain

of loving you

~ Nikki Giovanni

______________________________________

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

~ Thomas Merton