you're each other. then your self.

a walk through a flooded park. echoes a long ago walk.



first love

side-by-side with the one.

you love.

swinging through the air.

feet skimming puddles.
puddles like mirrors.

you’re each other.

you’re each other's.

then your selves.

then your self.

side-by-side with the one.

you love.

sgl

eyes to see others - a mirror to see ourselves

"while we have eyes to see others, we need a mirror to see ourselves." tibetan proverb



eight verses for training the mind

by langri thangpa
(1054-1123)

with a determination to accomplish
the highest welfare for all sentient beings
who surpass even a wish-granting jewel
i will learn to hold them supremely dear.

whenever i associate with others i will learn
to think of myself as the lowest among all
and respectfully hold others to be supreme
from the very depths of my heart.

in all actions i will learn to search into my mind
and as soon as an afflictive emotion arises
endangering myself and others
will firmly face and avert it.

i will learn to cherish beings of bad nature
and those oppressed by strong sins and suffering
as if i had found a precious
treasure very difficult to find.

when others out of jealousy treat me badly
with abuse, slander, and so on,
i will learn to take on all loss,
and offer victory to them.

when one whom i have benefited with great hope
unreasonably hurts me very badly,
i will learn to view that person
as an excellent spiritual guide.

in short, i will learn to offer to everyone without exception
all help and happiness directly and indirectly
and respectfully take upon myself
all harm and suffering of my mothers.

i will learn to keep all these practices
undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions
and by understanding all phenomena as like illusions
be released from the bondage of attachment.

the dalai llama has provided a teaching of these verses that is especially illuminating and insightful. to read it please visit here.

let it lie still

atlantic beach . ann packard


wouldn't you say,

wouldn't you say: one day,

with a little more time or a little more patience, one might

disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight

one of the moment's hundred strands, unfray

beginnings from endings, this from that, survey

say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch

part of oneself or a leaf or a sound (not clutch

or cuff or bruise but touch with finger-tip, ear-

tip, eyetip, creeping near yet not too near);

might take up life and lay it on one's palm

and, encircling it in closeness, warmth and calm,

let it lie still, then stir smooth - softly, and tendril by tendril unfold, there on one's hand ... one might examine eternity's

cross-section

for a second, with slightly more patience, more time for reflection?

a.s.j. tessimond. 1934