|
The Light Shines
* * *
-Legendary Hermit Hanshan...
This tree was growing before the forest was born.
If you guess its age, it’s twice as old.
Its roots met the changes of hills and ravines,
its leaves were altered by wind and frost.
Everyone laughs at its outer decay,
failing to appreciate the colorful patterns within.
Its bark may have peeled away,
but there is only truth inside.
*Kazuaki Tanahashi, Peter Levitt. The Complete Cold Mountain.
The moment you see your helplessness, that nothing works, you come to a point of surrender, a stand-still, where you are in communion with silence, ultimate truth.
*Jean Klein. The Ease of Being.
What leads us to believe that we can know more through words than through silence? That truth relies on thoughts - words being framed thoughts? That truth is conceptual? Could it be you are most listening when not listening for? Most in contact with truth with no thought of truth? Could it be the aim of truth is not conceptual understanding but relationship, intimacy? This like feeling the Sunshine upon the face, the wind upon the skin, or a tear running down your cheek.
* * *
A seeker spoke to the Sage, "What would be pure religion? I'm unable to find it."
One doesn't find what one isn't.
What?
Each form of religion is impure as to purity and pure as to impurity. Yet, you can't find it anywhere.
What do you mean 'can't find it anywhere'?
As to purity or not, or religion, no one says, and that's how to know. Still, religion is what it is to anyone at any moment, even to one who is against all religion - how could it be other? So, there's no religion. Hence, how could there be pure or impure religion?
You're confusing me. Why?
I speak, so you will be quiet, not so that you will understand. Possibly, then, you will understand.
... and there was silence ...
The Sage often remarked, "Only you can polish your mirror."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
* * *
*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2022.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
|
