It is not the altar that matters, not that, nor the shape that is found there. The ghostly ideas come and go, one after another. But the place endures. The fact that there is a door.
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly writte...
The full beauty of the mountain is not seen until you consent to the impossible paradox: it is... and is not.... When nothing more needs to be said, the smoke of ideas clears, the mountain is seen. ~ Thomas Merton with thanks to louie,louie
The world is no more than the Beloved's single face; In the desire of the One to know its own beauty, we exist. Each place, each moment, sings its particular song of not-being and being. Without reason, the clear glass equally mirrors wisdom and madness. Those who claim knowledge are wrong; prayer just leads to trance; Appearance and faith are mere lees in the Unknowing Wine. Wherever the Footprint is found, that handful of dust holds the oneness of worlds. This earth, burnished by hearing the Name, is so certain of Love That the sky bends unceasingly down, to greet its own light. ~ Ghalib translated by Jane Hirshfield from The Enlightened Heart , An anthology of sacred poetry edited by Stephen Mitchell photo by eliot porter
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