Saint Francis and the Sow - Galway Kinnell

 

Saint Francis and the Sow

BY GALWAY KINNELL

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;   

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;   

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch   

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow   

began remembering all down her thick length,   

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,   

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine   

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering   

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Galway Kinnell, “Saint Francis and the Sow” from Three Books. Copyright © 2002 by Galway Kinnell. Reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved, www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

Source: Three Books (2002)

I will not live an unlived life

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

        Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life

I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

The poem is a candle that my soul holds out to me, requesting I find a way to remember what it is to live a life with passion, on purpose. There is only enough light to take the journey step by step, but that is all any of us really needs. [...]

When you have the courage to shape your life from the essence of who you are, you ignite, becoming truly alive. This requires letting go of everything that is inauthentic. But how can you even know your truth unless you slow down, in your own quiet company? When the inner walls to your soul are graffitied with advertisements, commercials, and the opinions of everyone who has every known and labeled you, turning inwards requires nothing less than a major clean-up.

Traveling from the known to the unknown requires crossing an abyss of emptiness. We first experience disorientation and confusion. Then if we are willing to cross the abyss in curious and playful wonder, we enter an expansive and untamed country that has its own rhythm. Time melts and thoughts become stories, music, poems, images, ideas. This is the intelligence of the heart, but by that I don't mean just the seat of our emotions. I mean a vast range of receptive and connective abilities, intuition, innovation, wisdom, creativity, sensitivity, the aesthetic, qualitative and meaning making. It is here that we uncover our purpose and passion.

--Dawna Markova, From "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life"

Another tag to use to catalog...might be 'acceptance'...listening to Hugh Byrne on March 14, 2021...'acceptance is a prerequisite to action'.

Warm-Hearted Practice - FULL TEXT

I don't know if you have the actual feeling of true practice. I don't know because when I was young and practicing zazen, I did not know what it was. Although I had some feeling for the practice, it was difficult to talk about the feeling. The feeling made no sense even though I was very impressed by the practice.

I wanted to put some order into those experiences, but that is not possible. I thought I understood a certain amount one year and that next year I would understand a little bit more. This is what people call "stepladder Zen." This kind of practice doesn't make much sense. Maybe after you try stepladder practice, you may realize that it is a mistake since practice and enlightenment are one.

If you don't have some actual feeling of practice, that is not practice. Even though you sit in the right posture, follow your breath, and follow all the instructions that are given to you, this still may be empty zen. This is because even though you are following the instructions, you are not kind enough to yourself. Just to follow your breathing doesn't make sense. If you are very kind with your breaths, one after another, then you will have a refreshing, warm feeling with your zazen.

Perhaps we are not kind enough with ourselves, with our practice. If you don't feel Buddha's mercy in your practice, on your body and breathing, there is no warm feeling and it is not satisfying zazen. You should be fully satisfied with your practice. You should be very kind to yourself; then naturally you will feel satisfaction.

A mother will take care of her children even though she has no idea of how to make her baby happy. Similarly, when you take care of your posture and your breathing, there should be some warm feeling in it. When you have a warm feeling in your practice, that is actually a good example of the great mercy of Buddha. And whether you are a priest or a layperson, this practice will extend to your everyday life. When you take utmost care of what you do, then you feel good.

Tozan Ryokai attained enlightenment many times. Once when he was crossing a river, he saw himself reflected in the water and said, "Don't try to figure out what you are. If you try to figure out what you are, what you understand will be far from you. You should not have even an image of yourself." Actually you are in the river. You may say this is just a shadow or a reflection of yourself, but if you see carefully with a warm-hearted feeling, this is you. You may think you are warm-hearted, but when you try to understand how warm, you cannot actually measure the temperature of your feeling. Yet when you see yourself in the mirror or in the water with this warm feeling, this is actually you. And whatever you do, you are there.

You don't have to seek for where the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjushri is or what he is doing. When you have good practice in your everyday life, there is Manjushri, and there is true you, real you. Don't say Manjushri is here or there, or in the middle of the zendo. When you do things with your warm-hearted mind, that is actual practice. That is how to take care of things, and that is how to talk with people.

Some of you are priests or monks and some of you are not, and each of you will have your own way to go. Those who are not married and those who have married both have their ways of extending practice to everyday life. Although our situations are different, practice is just one, and we all meet Manjushri. Even though he is one, he is everywhere, with everyone, and with things. Whatever you do, whatever practice you are involved in, there is Manjushri. The secret is not to forget the true mercy of Buddha who takes care of everything. If we lose this point, whatever you do doesn't matter.

So we put emphasis on warm heart, warm zazen. The warm feeling we have in our practice is, in other words, enlightenment, Buddha's mercy or Buddha's mind. It is not a matter of just counting or following your breath. Counting breath is tedious. So maybe it is better to just follow your breath. This is easier and less of a disturbance to your practice. But the point is, one after another, inhaling and exhaling, take care of your breath, just as a mother may watch a baby. If a baby smiles, its mother may smile. If a baby cries, its mother is worried. That kind of close relationship, that being one with your practice, is the point. I am not talking about anything new - the same old things!

When your practice improves, and you have good control over your desires and your everyday life, then you will have big freedom from everything. That is the goal of our practice, both for priests and for lay people.

Take care of your practice. Be very kind with yourself.

To bow

To bow is to no longer hold ourselves apart from the unpredictable
nature of all of our lives; it is to cultivate a heart that can
unconditionally welcome all things. We bow to what is, to all of life.

-- Christina Feldman

Perhaps this is about accepting and embracing 'not-knowing'. (CL)