Terrance Keenan
More books by Terrance Keenan…
“Lullaby of Crossing the River"
Carrying a day
is like carrying a mountain,
those endless small words
men use to guard
their helplessness.
Put your day down.
Come to the bank in the snow
wearing grace and pain,
the silence at the end of sentences.
Breathe the snow
and the sad odor of human dust.
All the roads are inside you,
even the desire
not to desire
brooding over your own horizon.
The innocents await you.
There is no one to wish farewell
except yourself in the orphaned dark.”
― St. Nadie in Winter: Zen Encounters with Loneliness
Carrying a day
is like carrying a mountain,
those endless small words
men use to guard
their helplessness.
Put your day down.
Come to the bank in the snow
wearing grace and pain,
the silence at the end of sentences.
Breathe the snow
and the sad odor of human dust.
All the roads are inside you,
even the desire
not to desire
brooding over your own horizon.
The innocents await you.
There is no one to wish farewell
except yourself in the orphaned dark.”
― St. Nadie in Winter: Zen Encounters with Loneliness
“The Tao Te Ching says, “The enemy is a shadow you yourself cast.” The
shadow wanders our unregarded hours where we hold resentments,
where we are lost, when there is nothing and no one to blame, though we
keep on blaming. I often wonder what is the light that hits the ego, casting
out the shadow? It is gratitude. And if the ego is gone, as it is when we are
truly grateful, there is no one to cast a shadow. We can replace blame with
gratitude—in any circumstance. Blame builds up walls around the self and
points only outward. Gratitude opens the heart, dissolves the self, and
points everywhere.”
― Zen Encounters with Loneliness
shadow wanders our unregarded hours where we hold resentments,
where we are lost, when there is nothing and no one to blame, though we
keep on blaming. I often wonder what is the light that hits the ego, casting
out the shadow? It is gratitude. And if the ego is gone, as it is when we are
truly grateful, there is no one to cast a shadow. We can replace blame with
gratitude—in any circumstance. Blame builds up walls around the self and
points only outward. Gratitude opens the heart, dissolves the self, and
points everywhere.”
― Zen Encounters with Loneliness
“The novelist Masao Abe has said, “In our daily life, there are moments
when we are here with ourselves—moments in which we feel a vague
sense of unity. But at other moments we find ourselves there—looking at
ourselves from the outside. We fluctuate between here and there from
moment to moment: homeless, without a place to settle.” He goes on to
add that only humans experience this divisive self-consciousness, that
plants and other animals just are what they are.”
―
when we are here with ourselves—moments in which we feel a vague
sense of unity. But at other moments we find ourselves there—looking at
ourselves from the outside. We fluctuate between here and there from
moment to moment: homeless, without a place to settle.” He goes on to
add that only humans experience this divisive self-consciousness, that
plants and other animals just are what they are.”
―
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