I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape–the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth*
Snow yet remaining
The evening slopes are misty –
An evening in spring. ~Iio Sogi**
cited in:
*John Connolly, The Wrath of Angels
**Faubion Bowers, The Classic Tradition of Haiku
Buddha’s Enlightenment:
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall*
*cited in:
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Shunryu Suzuki
Seeing our finger,
hearing a frog jump into the water,
experiencing the sunrise,
washing one’s face in the early morning –
anything will serve as a medium of realization if the mind is serene ~ Robert Aitken, A Zen Wave
If you stay at a place where a feeling of loneliness
[or sadness, detachment, voidness] comes,
the contemplative absorption arises in us ~Paltrul Rimpoche
Dear Larry,
as the winter winds travel across Wyoming’s landscape
the swirling snow releases its memories of you, lost upon Casper Mountain
its frigid touch awakens me to imagine your
aloneness in that wilderness of blinding snow
cries, deafened by the river of winds,
calling out in hope for
a human form to emerge out of the whiteness
the warmth of a human hand
the sound of a voice, comforting you
to accompany you home.
as I become lost within this winter’s swirling thoughts
the river winds tear into my soul
releasing tears arising from
the darkness of grief’s aloneness, seeking
a knowing to emerge out of ignorance’s darkness
you found peace
within a loving presence
that embraced you
and accompanied you home –
until then may refuge be found within the nature of things.
repose
In a world
of lies–why not blossoms
that don’t fall ~ Sogi*
cited in Steven D Carter, Haiku before Haiku
Roget’s International Thesaurus: applying color, explanation, learning, lighting, ornamentation, painting, picture, radiation, teaching
how colorless, now–
fields where I took bush clover
for my garden ~Satomura Genjo
winter’s slumber before January’s snow
winter’s slumber
january’s frost
should I hold them in my hand,
they will disappear In the warmth of my tears,
icy strings of frost ~Basho*
a day in January
where I planted seeds
oh well!
morning frost~Issa**
Cited In:
*http://thegreenleaf.co.uk
**www.the haikuguy.com
Share a picture which means RESOLVED to you!
intention
Standing at the Threshold
With uncertainty, I question:
What is it that I seek?
Protection? Compassion? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Completion?
Who is it that I beckon?
A father? A mother? A sister? A brother? A companion? A child? A god?
To be? To endure? To offer? To embrace? To validate?
An intentional presence that is drawn upon
A place and time of shadows, myths, and dreams?
Birthed within a family?
Matured within a relationship?
Nourished within a community?
Where the Stillness within Silence,
Affirms the exchange of life’s giving and taking,
Embraces the connection of life’s emotional threads, and
Observes the interdependence of life with non-judgmental awareness,
Yet, knows of a united oneness with another that can not be?
Since it can not be, do I yearn
To know integration through the formation of thought;
To see clarity through the flowing of ink; and
To feel completion through the act of creating?
And then, finally, within the stillness of silence,
I befriend
An internal companion with whom
There is an honoring of the who and what of which I am;
A woman, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother.
I touch
With reverence the presence of all that was, is, and will be.
I release
The seeking, the beckoning, the yearning to the Winds of Change.
I with uncertainty, Step over the Threshold
Foreseeing the return.
leaf in infancy l
leaf in infancy ii
You can learn about the pine only from the pine, or about the bamboo only from bamboo. When you see an object, you must leave your subjective pre-occupation with yourself; otherwise you impose yourself on the object, and do not learn. The object and yourself must become one, and from that feeling of oneness issues your poetry. However well phrased it may be, if your feeling is not natural—if the object and our self are separate—then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective counterfeit. ~ Basho*
On New Year’s Day
each thought a loneliness
as winter dusk descends ~Basho
Along my journey
through this transitory world,
new year’s housecleaning ~Basho
*cited in Issa’s The Year of My life. Trans: Nobuyuki Yuasa
IN A NEW POST CREATED SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PICTURE THAT MEANS DELICATE TO YOU.
Delicate … the dance
of light and shadow
between insight and ignorance
in life and death
from suffering to tranquility
May you become acquainted with tranquil single-pointed concentration . . . those who seek wisdom through the lens of tranquility glimpse reality in the same manner as a lighted candle — the light chases away that which is hidden within a darken closet’s shadows. Insight, once risen, shines light into closed hearts and minds and keeps the gloom of ignorance at bay
Oh leaves, ask the wind which of you
Will be the first to fall. ~Soseki
Along this road
Is none but I
This autumn eve. ~ Basho
cited in Jonathan Clements, The Moon in the Pines
a meditative journey 
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