Poems of Unalome

When people allow you to know about their pain and talk about it, take your shoes off. It’s a holy place. Be humble, be kind when someone shows you vulnerability. - Amani Albair art | Sandra Bierman

From "The Book of Time"  2. For how many years have you gone through the house shutting the windows, while the rain was still five miles away and veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the north, away from you and you did not even know enough to be sorry, you were glad those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple, were sweeping on, elsewhere, violent and electric and uncontrollable–- and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget all enclosures, including the enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will you dash finally, frantically, to the windows and haul them open and lean out to the dark, silvered sky, to everything that is beyond capture, shouting I’m here, I’m here! Now, now, now, now, now.                                 Art credit: Andrew Wyeth

The witchery of living is my whole conversation with you, my darlings. All I can tell you is what I know. Look, and look again. This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes. It’s more than bones. It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It’s more than the beating of the single heart. It’s praising. It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving. You have a life—just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another. Excerpt from “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass” by Mary Oliver

Manifestation: How it Works and Techniques   Sections Manifestation: How it Works and Techniques What Manifestion Is Manifestation Techniques Manifestation - Meditation Exercise Wise Understanding (from Recovery Dharma 2.0) Resource Links     What Manifestion Is Manifestation refers to the process of bringing something into existence or making something apparent and evident. In the context of personal development and spirituality, the term "manifestation" often relates to the idea that your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings can influence your reality and bring about positive outcomes in your life. The concept is based on the belief that by focusing on positive thoughts and intentions, individuals can attract positive experiences, people, and opportunities into their lives. Advocates of manifestation often emphasize the power of visualization, positive affirmations, and maintaining a mindset aligned with one's goals. Practicing manifestation typically involves setting specif...

  From  Desire and Craving - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review Desire is everywhere. Every living thing has the desire to stay alive. Even plants “strive” to propagate themselves.   Craving   is our creator. Our parents’ craving for each other and our craving for rebirth combined to create us. Even painful feelings give rise to craving. When a painful feeling arises, we do not like it. We wish to get rid of the pain, and we wish to enjoy some pleasure. Both wishes are craving. The truth is, we don’t really want to be free from desire or to admit that clinging to the pleasures of the senses—the taste of delicious food; the sound of music, gossip, or a joke; the touch of a sexual embrace—ends unavoidably in disappointment and suffering. We don’t have to deny that pleasant feelings are pleasurable. But we must remember that like every other feeling, pleasure is impermanent. Wishing to keep any person, place, possession, or experience with us forever is hopeless! We use mind...

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.” ―  Rainer Maria Rilke,  Letters to a Young Poet

From Thich Naht Hanh, "Touching Peace" When we see someone who is very fresh, we like to sit close to him. He knows how to preserve himself as a flower. With mindful breathing, we can also be fresh. Young people who have not suffered much are still beautiful flowers, the kind of flowers that can be a source of joy for anyone at any time. Just by breathing in and out and smiling, we too have a flower to offer, and the more we practice breathing and smiling, the more beautiful our flower will become. A flower does not have to do anything to be of service, it only has to be a flower. That is enough. A human being, if she is a true human being, is enough to make the whole world rejoice. So please practice breathing in and out and recover your flowerness. You do it for all of us. Your freshness and your joy bring us peace.

Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living By Thich Nhat Hanh Location 11 of 1065: Our true home is in the present moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. Peace is all around us-in the world and in nature-and within us-in our bodies and our spirits. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed. It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice. We need only to find ways to bring our body and mind back to the present moment so we can touch what is refreshing, healing, and wondrous. ...  When we practice breathing in and becoming aware of our heart, breathing out and smiling to our heart, we become enlightened. We see our heart so clearly. When we smile to our heart, we are massaging it with our compassion. When we know what to eat and what not to eat, what to drink and what...

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you shoud not return emptyhanded. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

from Wisdom Beyond Words by Sangarakshita Chapter One, location 1110 of 5233 "ordinary life is Enlightenment; Enlightenment is ordinary life. Reality is to be experienced in the midst of ordinary life, because there is nowhere else to experience it. If you are to experience reality anywhere it can only be here; if you are to experience reality at any time it can only be now.  Don't let your attention be diverted to higher heavenly realms—yes, the symbolism is very beautiful, it is very meaningful, but don't misunderstand it. It is here that we have to realize; it is now that we have to see. The ordinary is wonderful as it is; to add wonders and supernormal happenings would just be gilding the lily.  It would be as if, to draw attention to the fact that you have a nose and that it is a wonderful organ, you were to paint it bright red. To someone who really understands what a wonderful organ the nose is, this sort of decoration is in no way necessary."

For Calling The Spirit Back  From Wandering The Earth  In Its Human Feet Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop. Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control. Open the door, then close it behind you. Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean. Give back with gratitude. If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back. Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire. Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time. Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters. Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you. Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them. Don’t worry. The he...

 Ancient Language Hannah Stephenson If you stand at the edge of the forest and stare into it every tree at the edge will blow a little extra oxygen toward you It has been proven Leaves have admitted it The pines I have known have been especially candid One said that all breath in this world is roped together that breathing is the most ancient language

  Winter Grace by  Patricia Fargnoli If you have seen the snow under the lamppost piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table or somewhere slowly falling into the brook to be swallowed by water, then you have seen beauty and know it for its transience. And if you have gone out in the snow for only the pleasure of walking barely protected from the galaxies, the flakes settling on your parka like the dust from just-born stars, the cold waking you as if from long sleeping, then you can understand how, more often than not, truth is found in silence, how the natural world comes to you if you go out to meet it, its icy ditches filled with dead weeds, its vacant birdhouses, and dens full of the sleeping. But this is the slowed down season held fast by darkness and if no one comes to keep you company then keep watch over your own solitude. In that stillness, you will learn with your whole body the significance of cold and the night, which is otherwise always eluding you.

  Lines for Winter ~ by Mark Strand Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on walking, hearing the same tune no matter where you find yourself ~ inside the dome of dark or under the cracking white of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow. Tonight as it gets cold tell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play as you keep going. And you will be able for once to lie down under the small fire of winter stars. And if it happens that you cannot go on or turn back and you find yourself where you will be at the end, tell yourself in that final flowing of cold through your limbs that you love what you are.

Puja-de-la-Gratitude-version-française-French.pdf (thebuddhistcentre.com)

  Beannacht / Blessing by John O’Donohue For Josie, my mother On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you. And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window and the ghost of loss gets into you, may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green and azure blue, come to awaken in you a meadow of delight. When the canvas frays in the currach of thought and a stain of ocean blackens beneath you, may there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight to bring you safely home. May the nourishment of the earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.