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mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: ocean

the turtle and the yoke

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2017, 8*, arrogance, benefit, blindness, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breathing, facade, faith, glamour, honesty, kleshas, laziness, meditation, ocean, potential, practice, rebirth, self-indulgent, spontaneity, talking to myself, turtle, voices, windows

                the turtle and the yoke

                here is something cold-sweaty
                and uncomfortable to face –
                so much potential, so little use –

                seduced by the whispers of maybe
                I am arrogant, I am lazy, I am
                self-indulgent; they advance

                tempting as bright sweeties
                unchecked by doesn’t-really-
                matter and giddy spontaneity

                facing them will not be entertaining
                or glamourous or noble, it
                won’t even feel good

                but that it would magnify
                longer term benefits if I simply persisted;
                but I have such weak and

                feckless faith: the befuddled
                turtle disturbs the sea-bed slow-motion
                it is time to rise to take the breath

                when civic façade fades to window,
                but there is so much ocean,
                I cannot see which way is up

                but trust to hope and buoyancy
                that it could be
                that this time will place my neck

                in the life-yoke brightly adrift
                about the shoreless sea, to realise
                I could be a radiant being

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara IV, 20

 

from … Human Life is Extremely Hard to Find, by Geshe Sonam Rinchen; full article found: HERE

A blind turtle lives on the ocean bed and surfaces just once every hundred years. A golden yoke floats on the vast ocean, blown here and there by the wind. What are the chances of the turtle surfacing at just the right time and in just the right place to be able to put its head through the yoke? Our chances of gaining a life of freedom and fortune are just as improbable. You may think it couldn’t possibly be so difficult, but cyclic existence is like a vast and stormy ocean and we are like the turtle that spends most of its time in the depths and only surfaces very occasionally. For most of our lives we have been in bad rebirths and it happens only very rarely that we emerge from these into a good rebirth.

The yoke is made of gold and is therefore heavy, so it often sinks and is invisible. The yoke symbolizes the teachings of an enlightened one. An age of illumination is a period dur­ing which an enlightened one has taught in the world and those teachings are still extant, but there are much longer dark periods of time when the world is without such teachings.

The yoke does not remain in one place but is blown here and there by the wind. Similarly the teachings first flourish in one country and then in another. They thrive where people take an interest in practicing them and die out when they cease to be alive in people’s hearts. Sometimes the turtle comes up to the surface but in a place where there is no golden yoke. This is like taking a good rebirth but having no access to the teachings.

The turtle must actually put its head into the yoke, which signifies that the only way into the teachings is by taking refuge in the Three Jewels. Our lack of interest in the teachings and our reluctance to engage with them is due to our lack of intelligence, which is like the turtle’s blindness. No matter what good circumstances we enjoy, our life is not truly fortunate and free from obstacles if we have no interest in the Buddha’s teachings.

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

breathing wormhole: where did the silence go
meditation wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
practice wormhole: ‘still …’
talking to myself wormhole: next unexpected step
voices wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
windows wormhole: quiet river

 

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Cocktails in 1951

20 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

1951, 2014, 6*, air, black, cars, clouds, grass, green, grey, leaves, listening, loneliness, moon, ocean, passing, pine, pink, sky, sound, speech, Sylvia Plath, talking, trees, white, writing

                Cocktails in 1951

                down below, that half-curious
                half-comical world on the terrace
                up here the air blurs the syllables
                of conversation like sky-writing

                from a clear pencilled line to a
                puffy cloud; green of grass
                grey of ocean and a deepening
                sky faintly pink; always a roaring

                of sound, cars whirring along
                the turnpike; the moon, now,
                over the green-black tops of pines
                chalkily white, third quarter lunar phase sphere

                amputated optically and neatly;
                below a thick voice, “The moon’s out.”
                The reply ravels and threads
                on the leaves and is lost to you

 

dug into, dug up, found, carefully dusted off and pieced together from entry 87. of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962, but written by Sylvia Plath before the moon really came out

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

air wormhole: and I lose sight of her into memory
black wormhole: slightly / uphill
cars wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket
clouds & pine wormhole: volcanic rock
green & trees wormhole: Tara mantras
grey wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
leaves & moon wormhole: between
listening & talking wormhole: reating & wriding
loneliness wormhole: wakeoutofadream
passing wormhole: duty free // chastened
pink wormhole: pink and orange
sky wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
sound wormhole: place
speech wormhole: h’rk ‘eh ‘heh ‘hair ‘yeah ‘eh?
Sylvia Plath wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
white wormhole: greedy
writing wormhole: is there anything to write?

 

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the ocean

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2012, 5*, beach, being, ocean, thinking, thought, waves, zazen

 

 

 

                                          thoughts are waves
                                          moving across the ocean
                                          rising and hollowing
                                          without real change

                                          thinking are waves
                                          breaking on the beach
                                          losing their power as they
                                          meander without effect

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

beach wormhole: Seaford / 280310
being wormhole: should // be // aware
thinking wormhole: the fall of the curtains / folded on the desktop / and the constant / wondering of airliners
thought wormhole: in sisting / on sitting / in sitting
zazen wormhole: as soon as
waves wormhole: NOW!!!

 

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… Mark; remember …

"... the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe to find ashes." ~ Annie Dillard

pages coagulating like yogurt

  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 10
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Introduction
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • Eglinton Hill
    • FLOORBOARDS
    • Granada
    • in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …
    • Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]
    • Miller’s Batman
    • mum
    • nan
    • Portsmouth – Southsea
    • Spring Warwick breezes / over Bacharach fieldwork and boroughs with / the occasional shift and chirp of David / in the pastel-long morning of the sixties
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
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  • index
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