Nothingness

"There is nothing in the Now"

Words by Ilchi Lee

"There is nothing in the Now. There is neither joy nor sorrow, success nor failure. In this instant, immeasurable by the concept of time, you are capable of infinite creation."

"Geuk": Ultimate, Crown, Pole

"Go as far as you can, and then one step further": A short meditation

by Ilchi Lee

"Those who study the Tao don't readily say, 'I did my best.' When you think you've reached the end of the road, take one more step. That one step will open up a new road before you."

"Some Trees," A Poem by John Ashbery

"Some Trees"

by John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something: that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Such comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

Perspective

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

--Wayne Dyer

I Am the Life

"I Am the Life"

I am the life

conceived in the mind of God,

birthed in the heart of God,

lived by the grace of God.

I am the life

given never earned,

lived when self dies,

found when not sought.

I am the life

that's a surprise,

yet the life meant for you.

Open your eyes

and you'll find me.

I'm here all the time,

finding you.

From the poem "I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"

by Geoff Anderson.

Spring Flowers

A haiku by Matsuo Basho:

Under the image of Buddha

all these spring flowers

seem a little tiresome.

Coming into the Presence

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

From The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright 1998. We were graciously granted permission to reprint this poem in our book We Thank You, God, for These: Blessings and Prayers for Family Pets.