[Image: “I Know the Place Where You Keep Your Secrets,” by Thomas Hawk. Found it on Flickr, and use it here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!).]
From whiskey river:
At the age of twenty-nine Gautama slipped away from his palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his family and possessions. He traveled as a homeless vagabond throughout northern India, searching for a way out of suffering. He visited ashrams and sat at the feet of gurus but nothing liberated him entirely — some dissatisfaction always remained. He did not despair. He resolved to investigate suffering on his own until he found a method for complete liberation. He spent six years meditating on the essence, causes and cures for human anguish. In the end he came to the realization that suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behavior patterns of one’s own mind.
Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless. This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things, such as pain. As long as the pain continues, we are dissatisfied and do all we can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant things we are never content. We either fear that the pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify. People dream for years about finding love but are rarely satisfied when they find it. Some become anxious that their partner will leave; others feel that they have settled cheaply, and could have found someone better. And we all know people who manage to do both.
(Yuval Noah Harari [source])
…and:
It’s All Right
Someone you trusted has treated you bad.
Someone has used you to vent their ill temper.
Did you expect anything different?
Your work—better than some others’—has languished,
neglected. Or a job you tried was too hard,
and you failed. Maybe weather or bad luck
spoiled what you did. That grudge, held against you
for years after you patched up, has flared,
and you’ve lost a friend for a time. Things
at home aren’t so good; on the job your spirits
have sunk. But just when the worst bears down
you find a pretty bubble in your soup at noon,
and outside at work a bird says, “Hi!”
Slowly the sun creeps along the floor;
it is coming your way. It touches your shoe.
(William Stafford [source])
…and:
Hawk
The forest is the only place
where green is green and blue is blue.
Walking the forest I have seen
most everything. I’ve seen a you
with yellow eyes and busted wing.
And deep in the forest, no one knew.
(Wendy Videlock [source])
Not from whiskey river:
The World Had Fled
The world had fled, with all its silly cares
and questionable aches, and in one swoon
we rose above its stupefying airs
like flying lovesick pigs up to the moon.
In that blue light where two lives equaled all,
our souls looked down upon a spinning ball.The world returned, and this was a surprise
I raged against like someone on a rack,
telling the sun, tears clouding my stunned eyes,
give us our splendid isolation back.
I craved third rails, a shot of something strong
when I found out it doesn’t last for long.The world came back a stayed, pain never ended,
but when the aches and begged for a hand,
grew softer in the light we’d made and tended,
I finally began to understand
love’s widening third stage, and of the three
this was the most outstanding ecstasy.
(Rachel Wetzsteon [source])
…and:
The White
These are the moments
before snow, whole weeks before.
The rehearsals of milky November,
cloud constructions
when a warm day
lowers a drift of light
through the leafless angles
of the trees lining the streets.
Green is gone,
gold is gone.
The blue sky is
the clairvoyance of snow.
There is night
and a moon
but these facts
force the hand of the season:
from that black sky
the real and cold white
will begin to emerge.
(Patricia Hampl [source])
…and:
After his stroke several years ago, my husband, Paul West, lived in the hospital rehabilitation unit for weeks, relearning the everyday feats we take for granted. How to swallow food, sit in a chair, steer a spoon, comb his hair. By far the toughest to relearn was language. To his shock and horror, he — a novelist — no longer knew how to speak, read, write or understand anything anyone said. Arduous work with physical therapists brought back some balance and dexterity. Then a few words returned to Paul helter-skelter, including one, usually slurred, that he sometimes uttered as a plea and often as a demand: “Home!”
(Diane Ackerman [source])
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