One more bit from the Dhammapada for today…
“Live in joy,
In love,
Even among those who hate.
Live in joy,
In health,
Even among the afflicted.
Live in joy,
In peace,
Even among the troubled.
Look within.
Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of the way.”
– from the Dhammapada (translated by Thomas Byrom)
“However young,
The seeker who sets out upon the way
Shines bright over the world.
But day and night
The man who is awake
Shines in the radiance of the spirit.
Meditate.
Live purely.
Be quiet.
Do your work, with mastery.
Like the moon,
Come out from behind the clouds!
Shine.”
– from the Dhammapada (translated by Thomas Byrom)
“Whoever you are, be that person with all your might. Time goes by faster than we thought. It is a thief so quiet. You must let yourself be loved and you must love, parts of you that never loved must open and love. You must announce yourself in all particulars so you can have yourself.”
From High Lonesome, by Barry Hannah (p. 35, from the first short story in the collection)
From Alan Watts, a gentle reminder:
“In fact, our present is enormously rich, and you will realize this if you understand that there is no time except present time. There is only now; there never was any time but now, and there never will be any time but now. It is all now. There is no hurry to gobble life down, and if you do you won’t be able to digest it. We can go on much longer than we suppose without eating, so it’s all right to just sit and be in the present.
But if you identify with the linear conception of yourself, with your story, and with the abstract ego, you feel inadequate, and therefore it becomes necessary to try to make up for that inadequacy by using energy to attain more in all sorts of ways.”
I’ve loved Bukowski since I first stumbled across his work in high school, and I suspect I’ll love him until the day I die. While enjoying two delicious Lazy Magnolia “Indian Summer” beers late yesterday afternoon, I read from Mockingbird Wish Me Luck. It was published in 1972. Again and again, I smiled and laughed and marveled at his ability to so easily and convincingly express himself without worrying about prettying things up. Always raw, always real. Always for me.
Here’s one I especially like:
ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha
monkey feet
small and blue
walking toward you
as the back of a building falls off
and an airplane chews the white sky,
doom is like the handle of a pot,
it’s there,
know it,
have ice in your tea,
marry,
have children, visit your
dentist,
do not scream at night
even if you feel like screaming,
count ten
make love to your wife,
or if your wife isn’t there
if there isn’t anybody there
count 20,
get up and walk to the kitchen
if you have a kitchen
and sit there sweating
at 3 a.m. in the morning
monkey feet
small and blue
walking toward you.
From Absalom, Absalom!:
“That was all. Or, rather, not all, since there is no all, no finish; it is not the blow we suffer from but the tedious repercussive anti-climax of it, the rubbishy aftermath to clear away from off the very threshold of despair. You see, I never saw him. I never even saw him dead. I heard an echo, but not the shot; I saw a closed door but did not enter it…”
and
“I was one of his pall bearers, yet I could not, would not believe something which I knew could not but be so. Because I never saw him. You see? There are some things which happen to us which the intelligence and the senses refuse just as the stomach sometimes refuses what the palate has accepted but which digestion cannot compass — occurences which stop us dead as though by some impalpable intervention, like a sheet of glass through which we watch all subsequent events transpire as though in a soundless vacuum, and fade, vanish; are gone, leaving us immobile, impotent, helpless; fixed, until we can die. That was I.”
