Opinions Are Like...

What is the use of having an attitude,

Of honing an edge with pumped-up platitudes,

Or holding your ground with no room for latitude?

No prizes are given out to those

Who die with the most opinions.

You’ll be keeping them all to yourself

In that last silent solitude.

Today's image from: http://adriano10.deviantart.com/art/Silence-Solitude-66087022

These Tears

What is it?

What are these 

Tears really for?

Saying good-bye,

Though no one

Is going away.

Saying thank you,

In deep gratitude,

For the gift 

No eye can

See.

Today's image is from a very thoughtful posting about tears, including a number of great quotes about them, found @ : http://divinevirtuosity.blogspot.com/2012/10/tears-oceans-tides-in-your-eyes.html

The Reason Why

Make sense to you?

Makes sense to me.

How could I tell you

How to be?

See that man banging his head

Against a wall so hard

That it makes him cry?

If you were standing 

In his shoes 

Perhaps you'd know

The reason why.

I composed this poem while driving one afternoon and seeing a crazy-bad bit of driving by a complete stranger. Why the sudden stops, why the multiple lane changes? Why ask why? 

When I got to the meeting I was driving to I wrote this down and read it fresh to a group of friends there. One of them told me about having seen two different people literally banging their heads against walls. Both persons had just witnessed the death of someone they loved, one in combat the other in a freak accident. Their despairing actions do make a terrible sort of sense, once you know the reason.

How about our own actions? What visible or invisible walls are we currently banging our poor heads into? Would any of our painful and persistent collisions make any sort of terrible sense to a disinterested viewer? It's worth asking the question.

Scotland's beloved national poet, Robert Burns famously put it well.

"O would some power the giftie gie us 

to see ourselves as others see us."

- "To a Louse" 

Today's image is from: slwakes.wordpress.com

Mortality

This business of drawing a last breath is no joke,

It’s a serious matter, make no mistake.

There’s so much hot soup still steaming

At the bottom of the bowl,

So many laughs remain at large,

Awaiting apprehension.

An army of metaphors are left unmixed,

And the very next moment is now standing in the wings,

Just dying to burst forward with its’ wild surprise!

So, stick to your diet while you compose,

And revise once more your big exit line,

Stay on your treadmill and ponder

All the kisses you have left to plant.

Because it’s a serious business

Drawing your last breath,

Make no mistake,

It’s no joke.

The two old-timers in Francisco Goyas' sardonic but life-affirming painting above have got the right idea, while there's soup in the bowl, keep eating! 

Your Secret Voice

In darkest night your secret voice

Whispers to me, soft and clear.

Your words not words

But knowing,

One truth unshaken.

“You are safe with me, in me.

Safe beyond all changes,

All disasters, all that passes,

All despairing, all departures.

To this alone, nothing need

Nor can be added.

Nothing reduced nor be removed.

No acts, no preparation,

Nothing to be studied, or forgotten,

Nor taken up or be forsaken.

Though any and all pains

May befall you,

Of even death, be not afraid.

You are with me,

And I with you.”

Peak experience, sudden enlightenment, satori, angel's visit, the holy spirit, gestalt or grace, there might be a billion names for that sudden moment when great doubt is altered into great understanding, Fears and anxieties drop away like the illusion they always were and in their place there is peace. 

Today's image of the light of the mysterious Moon is from: http://polarblogger-charsmeanderings.blogspot.com/2011/08/missing-perseids.html

Fair Warning!

Every day we see beloved flowers fall,

With each passing year we watch

While hated weeds grow taller,

Still we continue to cut the cake

On each new birthday that we meet.

Fair warning!

Celebrate enough birthdays without

Learning to let go and you'll end up

Writing somber poems just like this!

Yep, another birthday come and gone and no, I'm not feeling particularly somber. In fact, I had a rather nice birthday this year as it happened to fall on the day before Thanksgiving Day. The two occasions seemed to fuse into one with a small but very pleasant feast with friends.

This poem came up as a reminder to myself about the impermanence of things. This reminder was probably triggered by the loss of a molar tooth, the first tooth loss I've experienced since the last of my milk teeth departed many years ago. I understand that with the passing years our bodies age and losing teeth is part of the deal. Okay. But my mouth suddenly feels different and I'm not all that happy about the difference.

I'm seeing an oral surgeon next week about having a dental implant, so perhaps this time I can get back to pretty much the mouth I'm used to. But a milestone in life like this can be a good teacher if one is willing to be a good student. I always thought of that tooth as being part of me and now it's gone. How many parts of me make up "me"? As parts fall away, as they surely will, am I still me? When every part has fallen away, what remains? Who was this "me" I thought I was and who was it doing this thinking?

That lost tooth has given me quite a bit to chew on.

Today's image of a fire-hazzard cake comes from:

http://cdn.stripersonline.com/f/f2/f23336d8_man-i-feel-old-too-many-candles-in-this-cake.jpeg

Thinking to Take Tiger Mountain

Step by step I went when young, 

Thinking to take Tiger Mountain 

By strategy or storming Heaven

Just for laughs.

Trying hard to push the river,

I carried myself forward,

Quite lost through my own effort.

Just seeing this and 

Doing that,

Now I'm seated in my garden,

Listening to the small birds sing,

Quite content to watch all things 

Come forth, and let the world

Just turn itself.

"To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. 

That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening."

- Dogen Zenji, Genjo-koan

What a relief it is to know that our constant effort is not required to keep this big world turning, the great river flows on quite nicely all on its own. Our effort is best spent in being aware of the turning and the flowing and in listening to the small bird's songs.

Today's image is of the author at 19 years of age, in the mountains of Vietnam.