Before the Beginning

God speaks to each of us before we are made

then walks with us silently out of the night.

There are the words, the numinous works,

we hear before we begin:

You, called forth by your senses,

Reach to the edge of your Longing:

Become my body.

Grow like a fire behind things

so their shadows spread out

and cover me completely

Let everything into you: Beauty and Terror.

Keep going: remember, no feeling is forever.

Don’t lose touch with me.

Nearby is the land

they call Life.

You will recognize it

by its intensity.

Give me your hand.

R.M. Rilke, 1875-1926

Translated by Kim Rosen/Maria Krekler

The Time Before Death

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!

Think... and think... while you are alive.

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time

before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,

do you think

ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will rejoice with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten --

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now,

you will simply end up with an apartment in the

City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next

life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,

Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,

it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that

does all the work.

Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

~~~ By Kabir

~~~ Translated by Robert Bly

Ten Poems to Change Your Life, edited by Roger Housden

A PRAYER AMONG FRIENDS

Among other wonders, we are alive
With one another, we walk here
In the light of an unlikely world
That isn’t ours for long.
May we spend generously
The time we are given.
May we enact our responsibilities
As thoroughly as we enjoy
Our pleasures. May we see with clarity,
May we seek a vision
That serves all beings, may we honour
The mystery surpassing our sight,
And may we hold in our hands
The gift of good work
And bear it forth whole, as we
Were borne forth by a power we praise
To this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.

by John Daniel

Parable of the Bamboo Flute

Once upon a time in the heart of a certain kingdom, lay a beautiful garden. Of all the dwellers of the garden, the most beautiful and beloved to the master of the garden was a splendid and noble Bamboo. Year after year, Bamboo grew yet more beautiful and gracious. He was conscious of his master's love, yet he was modest and in all things gentle. Often when Wind came to revel in the garden, Bamboo would dance and sway merrily, tossing and leaping and bowing in joyous abandon. He delighted his master's heart.

One day the master spoke: "Bamboo, I would use you."

Bamboo flung his head to the sky in utter delight. The day in which he would find his completion and destiny had come! His voice came low: "Master, I am ready, use me as you want."

"Bamboo," the master's voice was grave, "I would be obliged to take you and cut you down."

A trembling of great horror shook Bamboo. "Cut...me...down? Me whom you, master, have made the most beautiful in all your garden? Cut me down? Ah, not that, not that. Use me for your joy, oh master, but don't cut me down."

"Beloved Bamboo," the master's voice grew graver still. "If I do not cut you down, I cannot use you."

Bamboo slowly bent his proud and glorious head. The came a whisper. "Master, if you cannot us me unless you cut me down, then do your will and cut."

"Bamboo, beloved Bamboo, I would cut your leaves and branched from you also."

"Master, master spare me. Cut me down and lay my beauty in the dust, but would you take from me my leaves and branches also?"

Bamboo, alas! If I do not cut them away, I cannot use you."

Bamboo shivered in terrible expectancy, whispering low. "Master, cut away."

"Bamboo, Bamboo. I would divide you in two and cut out your heart, for if I do not cut so, I cannot use you."

"Master, master, then cut and divide."

So the master of the garden took Bamboo and cut him down and hacked off his branches and stripped his leaves and divided him in two and cut out his heart and pierced his skin and removed parts of Bamboo's flesh, and lifting him gently, carried him to where there was a spring of fresh, sparkling water in the midst of the master's dry fields. The putting down one end of broken Bamboo into the spring and the other end into the water channel in the field, the master laid down gently his beloved Bamboo. The clear sparkling water raced joyously down the channel of Bamboo's torn body into the waiting fields. Then the rice was planted and the days went by. The shoots grew. The harvest came. In that day was Bamboo, once so glorious in his stately beauty, yet more glorious in his brokenness and humility. For in all his beauty he was life abundant. But in his brokenness he became a channel of abundant life to his master's world.

Dot among dots

You are a dot among dots,
so extend yourself to whoever needs you,
and let this extension of yourself
be filled with the unending love
that is at your fingertips.

Eric K. Kammersgard