All Is Well in the Great Mess

Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.

– Seneca

The prisoners of infinite choice
Have built their house
In a field below the wood
And are at peace.

It is autumn, and dead leaves
On their way to the river
Scratch like birds at the windows
Or tick on the road.

Somewhere there is an afterlife
Of dead leaves,
A stadium filled with an infinite
Rustling and sighing.

Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have led
Have found their own fulfilment.

Derek Mahon, The Snow Party (Oxford University Press 1975).

I wonder what feelings inspire a man to complain of 'having nothing to do.' I am happiest when I have nothing to distract me and I am completely alone. . . . Even if a man has not yet discovered the path of enlightenment, as long as he removes himself from his worldly ties, leads a quiet life, and maintains his peace of mind by avoiding entanglements, he may be said to be happy, at least for the time being.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your
religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of
your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have
been handed down for many generations. But after observation and
analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is
conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and
live up to it.

Since I came to Cold Mountain
how many thousand years have passed
accepting my fate I fled to the woods
to dwell and gaze in freedom
no one visits the cliffs
forever hidden by clouds
soft grass serves as a mattress
my quilt is the dark blue sky
a boulder makes a fine pillow
Heaven and Earth can crumble and change

– Red Pine (translator), The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

When I am in need of a sense of perspective, I often turn to the poetry of Ryokan (1758-1831) or Wang Wei (c. 701-761). Ryokan was a Zen monk who lived much of his life in a hut in the wooded hills near the coast of the Sea of Japan. (Present-day Niigata Prefecture.) He is one of the most beloved of Japanese poets, valued for his humility, his simplicity, and his integrity.

If you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.

– Wayne Dyer

Having no destination
I am never lost.

– Ikkyu 1394-1481

(n.) (v. phr.) “to repair with gold”; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that piece is more beautiful for having been broken

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.

Barbara Bloom

In Japan, broken objects are often repaired with gold. The flaw is seens as a unique piece of the object’s history, which adds to its beauty.

Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.

– Epictetus, The Discourses

You can’t save time.
You can only spend it.
But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.

– Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

– Maya Angelou

If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid
in extraneous matters — don’t wish to seem knowledgeable.
And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.

– Epictetus

Once there was a young man walking in the street, he was 25 years old and was lost in his thoughts. He was thinking about the future, about his goals, about his purpose in his life, about his family’s health, and also he was thinking about his past, his mistakes, his embarrassments, his bad decisions, and all of these thoughts were making him very anxious and frustrated. He didn’t know what to do with his life, he was 25 years old and going nowhere, with no prospects, no real goals, with nothing planned, his life was passing him by like a flash and he couldn’t keep up. Then he reached a park, the park was huge and had a lot of vegetation, and this intrigued him since he never saw anything quite like that before, and this young man decided to enter the park and explore.

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.