• Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Introduction
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Chapter 10
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • 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
    • through the crash
  • index
    • #A-E see!
    • F–K, wha’ th’
    • L-P 33 1/3 rpm
    • Q-T pie
    • U-Z together forever
  • me
  • others
    • William Carlos Williams
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • wormholes

mlewisredford

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

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: offering

Sujātā

01 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, asking, branches, Buddha, flow, milk, need, offering, passing, place, rice, river, sitting, Sujata, time, wisdom

                Sujātā

                the Nairañjanā flows,
                it always flows, Sujātā
                knows the flows, she had passed there

                every day, she passed
                the Bodhisattva parched
                as a blackened tree-stump,

                and every day saw only
                the low low reach of
                the tree wide and high

                waiting for the One
                to sit under, axial
                to the universe

                and before it was even
                apparent and the need
                had yet to ask she

                had creamed the
                sweetest milk with
                bursting grains of rice

                and offered it by the
                ever-flowing river, all
                absent of design and

                plot, but ineluctable
                in both place and
                process; so few found so wise

 

from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra:

                “The village girl Sujātā, who has done much good in the past,
                  Continuously makes offerings, thinking: “May this guide complete his discipline!”                
                  When she hears the request of the gods, she brings milk porridge with honey;
                  She goes to the river and happily sits on the banks of the Nairañjanā.”

 

 

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

branches & river wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
Buddha wormhole: in deed
flow wormhole: transferring
passing & sitting wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
time wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

 

Advertisement

Rate this:

mandala offering

17 Friday May 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

2019, 7*, cause and effect, doing, emptiness, eyes, giving, guidance, hands, holding, identity, interdependent origination, letting go, mandala, mountain, offering, orbit, pointing, selflessness, smile, society, water, waves, world

                not in water piled high in waves
                nor cleverly pointing

                to my own finger
                let’s just leave all that aside for the moment

                mandala offering

                but all that I let within and
                all that I give without

                without aim and with only
                slight smile and eyes

                that guides the lunge
                and holds for the whole of the fall

                flat as the palm of a hand
                deep as the highest mountain

                that the world will continue to spin
                in a palimpsest mark redford way

                and all might find their nature empty and
                centered around each orbit they make

 

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

a mandala offering is a ritual way of offering the whole universe to the Buddhas, a way of giving up everything for the sake of one’s essential goal in life; ‘is the universe mine to offer?‘ – my universe is, `bought and paid for; ‘but the universe is so big, how can you ‘offer’ it?‘ – easy, the whole of the universe is inside my head; ‘is your universe worth offering to the Buddhas?‘ – it could do with a clean up, which is why I imagine it buffed up with all the Mark Redford stuff cleared away; ‘why bother?‘ – it gives me a clean sheet with which to work on; ‘isn’t that just a bit self-indulgent?‘ – nope, self-indulgence is one of the things I hope to clean out of the universe in order to offer it, I’m hoping to invite a few friends and family around once it’s cleaned up; ‘`sounds rather limited‘ – you don’t know how many mothers I’ve got; ‘do the Buddhas want your mandala?‘ – the Buddhas are my universe, it’s just that I don’t see it yet, my damn ownership keeps getting in the way, and besides, I’m under universe-arrest at the moment … some stuff I did in the past …

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

 

 

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

doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
emptiness wormhole: there will be ovations
eyes wormhole: my uncomfortable life
giving wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
hands & waves wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
identity & letting go & society wormhole: in deed
smile wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
water wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

Rate this:

‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’

30 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

2018, 8*, achievement, anger, ants, arrogance, beauty, Big Issue, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, books, buying, Carol, cat, cause and effect, chrome, comics, conception, conditioned existence, dark, doing, evening, eyes, giving, glass, Hulk, human, identity, insight, isolation, kids, life, lightning, marbles, mind, modesty, night, offering, patience, perfect human rebirth, quality, shrine, standing, strangers, talking to myself, teaching, teeth, time, tin, white

                … and yet I think I am so modest:
                      I think I have gathered such quality and beauty in life,

                      all the coloured glass and marbles I offer to the shrine,
                all the Big Issues I generously buy

                all the time given to Carol and the kids,
                      to abandoned strangers, all the vistas I gave at school,

                      all the insights from comics and books, I think I
                know what’s what; I stand colossal

                      on the paving slab, so much more and in so many ways
                than the ants that circle across it,

                so much more, even, than the cat
                      that comes and uselessly rubs about my legs, I stand

                      human to the height of all achievement; all of this
                I have already destroyed

                      a thousand times over in a thousand different ways
                with even the most slight

                      annoyance (and the thing is I am always annoyed), let alone
                the hulked, mindblanked and white-eyed

                teeth and howls; when this dent,
                      this sudden crease in what looks like flimsy tin (from

                this axe from some other side) that
                      holds the calm and flow of all the cause and conditionality,

                      everything bent sharp over a refusal, that creates me adverse
                and isolated; I won’t

                      become human again for so long I’ll need
                another, far-future,

                flash of lightning
                      in the darkest of darkest nights before I’ll

                ever get another chance
                      to even conceive what’s happening to me; let’s

                ease out all these creases, let’s
                      polish all that chrome, before evening comes again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI, beginning verses

 

 

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

beauty & books & identity wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
Carol wormhole: we held cold hands
cat wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
comics wormhole: letting them go
doing wormhole: the moon, the moon
evening & eyes & white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
giving wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
glass & life & mind & time wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
lightning wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
night wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
talking to myself wormhole: blister on me thumb
teaching wormhole: how to teach

 

Rate this:

just saying, is all VIII: keeping up toxic appearences

22 Monday May 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2013, 5*, appearance, breath, career, communication, decades, dialectic, lungs, managerialism, neglect, no voice, offering, plastic, professionalism, rights, teaching, toxic

                                                                                 just saying, is all VIII:

                                              and after all
                                              I had something to offer
                                              to the very fibre and vessel of teaching

                                              that was ‘hoff’-
                                              ishly and consistently denied the right to enter
                                              that holy dialectic, it was

                                              sincere and
                                              credible and beneath
                                              neglect, while keeping up toxic appearences

                                              of communication,
                                              thriving in a sealed plastic bag …
                                              … in which I have taken breath for decades

                                              my lungs
                                              now shot through, unable to
                                              speak but still reliant on a borderline-

                psychotic professionalism wasting me to the bone

 

 

 

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

breath wormhole: stone
career & managerialism wormhole: just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical
communication wormhole: reprieve
professionalism & teaching wormhole: wakeoutofadream

 

Rate this:

seventy two, perhaps – poewieview #9

12 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1966, 2016, age, being, birth, Bowie, death, doing, fall, future, living, meaning, offering, planning, walls, work, writing

                                seventy two, perhaps

                                it got to my birth and
                                there was nothing to write

                                it got to the start and there
                                were nothing but tin walls

                                it got to make sense but
                                there was nothing but planning

                                it got time to work but
                                no time to be

                                it came time to proffer with
                                only two steps to fall

                                and now it is the future
                                and I wonder when it will
                                                                     all
                                                                     just
                                                                     stop

 

serendipitously bounced from Come And Buy My Toys, 1966, and the wordage on the page

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

being wormhole: and then just stop
Bowie & walls wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
death wormhole: London Park in Greenwich town – poewieview #5
doing & work wormhole: spit / spot
living wormhole: because
meaning & writing wormhole: no point

 

Rate this:

offer the victory and accept the defeat

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2012, acceptance, being, breathing, doing, LoJong, now, offering, perfect human rebirth, practice, talking to myself, time, true nature, writing

 

 

 

                                              I should
offer the victory and accept the defeat
                in everything that I

                                doing

                                                              not
                                              when the time is right
                not when the time accords with what is written like some prophecy
                                                                                 or fate
                                              not in any future time either

                                                              but by my nature
                                                                                 now as I breathe
                                                                                              and in my nature now as I write

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: it is complete
being & talking to myself & writing wormhole: sit
breathing wormhole: The Louvre in a Thunderstorm, 1909
doing & time wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
practice wormhole: exactly equal

 

Rate this:

disappear

09 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2013, dialectic, frustration, growth, identity, listening, managerialism, observation, offering, responsibility, work

 

 

 

                                I don’t want to be listened to,
I don’t want to be followed or made responsible,
                                              I don’t want to be observed or made an example,
                                I don’t even want to have to own it
                                              with my name all over it,

                                              I would just like to be
                                a part of the dialectic I felt moved to offer
                                                              twice
                                              a thousand times
                                                              and disappear
                                                              into the
                                              development it grew

 

                                                              not apart
                                                              from it

 

 

 

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

identity & listening wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
managerialism wormhole: … anymore
work wormhole: block ‘n’ role

 

Rate this:

mlewisredford introductory complete life audit confessional

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in announcements

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

2014, blogging, breeze, clock, doors, flower, green, identity, lamp, lemon, life, London, mauve, meaning, net curtains, offering, openness, orange, purpose, sitting room, speech, Victorian houses, white

OK my dears, because you are my blogee friends and do me the honour of wriggling through my petites ramblings where you have probably surmised that I am a weed flowering out of a piece of neglected land by a once-brightly painted wall (of a Victorian house) in sauff-eest London, I’m going to let you all into a little secret: I am a compulsive geek, a compulsive geek-weed flower.   In my solipcistic search for a bit of point amidst all the ground … I count everything.   I’m not particularly proud of it, it doesn’t really add up to much and I am starting to sit in order to make all the counting so transparent that I’ll see right through it to the purpose I was looking for all along anyway.   But on the way I have collected (almost arthritically) a bunch of data about all sorts of things which have shaped me into the paricular flowered weed that I have become (mauve-thin thorns with white tips, deepdark green leaves at the top of the stem, and small but long petals with deep lemon edges, white middle and the thinnest blood-orange corrola and spine).   I have whole lifetimes of top 10s/20s – and more? – of word and picture and tone and image, my whole culture wrapped, bagged, ticketed and stacked into a comfy armchair in a spacious and double-faceted sitting room by a standard lamp and a ticking clock somewhere, doors open, net curtains billowing.   Slighty.   Occasionally.

So.   At the end of the day (litralee – I’m not even jokinngg-ugh) I audit my day and assign MY MEASURE of how much I got out of everything I did or how well I did it.   Or not.   The measure will only make sense to me, but they are A measure of how much I have got out of them, so I will include the numbers for your comparification (if you get that far).   Not geeky enough for you?   OK, try this on for size: I started doing this counting in 1998 and still do it?   Not even bothered yet?   I audit household work, career work, what I do for my kids, what I do for my wider family, what I do for my wife, what I do in my spiritual practice and what I do for myself at the end of every day.   Yawn?   I put all my numbers onto a spreadsheet (once I figured out what spreadsheets were) and have now got ongoing averages and charts for everything I do, hear, think and eat!   Whp-p! I saw your eyes twitch then, I’m getting to you, aren’t I (I’m sorry, but I’m on a roll now).   How about, once I settled my spreadsheet: I inserted enough rows above March 1998 all the way back to 2nd November 1959.   Yes, YES: the day I was born!   Do you see; do you see what happens when you start to listen to a geek; do you see my awful power …?   And then I retroactively filled in all the data!.   Oh, whoh; phew, sheesh – what a load off my mind; if I smoked I’d be taking a long draw at the moment – hot air through the teeth, down the throat – and holding it wondering what adjective would do justice to what just happened.

Actually, I think this confession is doing far more for me than it will ever do for anyone else.   Nevertheless I will be sharing with you some of the countings I have like a toddler sharing the stickiest boiled sweet that I’d saved in my hand just for you even though I’d scoffed the rest myself.   It’s sharing, I suppose, and it’s as sincere as a 54 year old child can be.   I’ll call them “mlewisredford’s top ten _______ !” and provide my own commentary.   I’ll store them under ‘poeviews’.   So you’d better have a wet handkerchief handy, you never know when I might proffer a little fat arm upwards with large ‘lashed eyes sincerely unwavering.

Look out, now!

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

breeze & orange wormhole: wha’
doors wormhole: tired
green & London wormhole: still there // above the / Dallin Road / allotments / looking high over the river and the city
identity wormhole: I don’t think I could do it any more
leon wormhole: the library, / you know …
life & mauve wormhole: in verse / question / m a r k ?
meaning wormhole: adversely / mistaking the finger for the moon / again
net curtains wormhole: 3:30 am
openness wormhole: practising
sitting room wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
speech wormhole: inverse superhero
Victorian houses wormhole: Victorian bays / right angles and eaves
white wormhole: let

 

Rate this:

as they wish

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2012, 5*, creativity, offering, others, publishing, regret, sitting, thought, water, writing

 

 

 

                                 publishing too much
                                    not writing enough
                                       not allowing myself
                                          time to    sit at a page
                                             and let the flow of thought
                                                well up from a core
                                                   where I will shape it skilful
                                                      into a bowl of equal bulge
                                                         all round and a slightly
                                                            out-turned and even lip
                                                               for someone else to glaze
                                                                  and colour or hold water in
                                                                  as they wish

 

 

 

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

creativity wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
others wormhole: Woodbrooke labyrinth / affirmations
publishing & sitting & writing wormhole: and
thought wormhole: again
water wormhole: let us mauve a whirl          elongated

 

Rate this:

… 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
    • through the crash
  • index
    • #A-E see!
    • F–K, wha’ th’
    • L-P 33 1/3 rpm
    • Q-T pie
    • U-Z together forever
  • me
  • others
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • William Carlos Williams
  • wormholes

recent leaks …

  • “…and may the great elements…”
  • paisley // implicitly
  • this pocketed being
  • the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
  • time
  • the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament
  • taking birth
  • mirror
  • long / road
  • ‘in my car I pass…’

Uncanny Tops

  • me
  • Moebius strip
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • 'in my car I pass...'
  • 'the practice ...'
  • 'I can write ...'
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
  • meanwhile
  • 'hello old friend ...'
  • under the blue and blue sky

category sky

announcements awards embroidery poems poeviews reflectionary teaching

tag skyline

'scape 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 20th century 1967 1979 1980 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 acceptance afternoon air Allen Ginsberg anxiety architecture arm in arm attention awareness Batman beach beauty bedroom being birds birdsong black blue Bodhisattvacharyavatara books Bowie branches breakdown breathing breeze brown Buddha buildings career Carol cars change child childhood children city clouds coffee shop colour combe end comics communication compassion compromise crane creativity curtains dancing dark death distraction divorce doing doors dream Dr Strange earth echo Edward Hopper Eglinton Hill emergence emptiness evening eyes faces family father feet field floorboards garden Genesta Road girl giving glass gold grass green grey growth haiku hair hands Have hedge hill hills history holiday hope horizon house houses identity kitchen leaf leaves lemon letting go life lifetimes light lime listening living London looking lost love management managerialism mauve meaning mind mist moon morning mother mouth movement Mum muse music night notice open openness orange others park passing pavement people performance management pink Plumstead poetry pointlessness politics portrait posture power practice professionalism purple purpose quiet rain reaching reading realisation reality red requires chewing river roads roof rooftops samsara sea searching seeing settling shadow shops silence silhouette silver sitting sky skyline sleep smell smile snow society sound space speech step stone streetlight streets sun sunlight superhero table talking talking to myself teaching teaching craft Thames thinking thought time train travelling trees true nature university voices walking walls water waves white William Carlos Williams wind windows wood Woolwich words work world writing years yellow zazen

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,847 other subscribers

... just browsing

  • 49,977 what th'-s

I wander around after this lot a lot …

m’peeps who notice I exist

these things I liked …

A WordPress.com Website.

SoundEagle 🦅ೋღஜஇ

Where The Eagles Fly . . . . Art Science Poetry Music & Ideas

Classic Rock Review

The home of forgotten music...finding old reviews before they're lost....

A Reading Writer

I write because I read. I read because I write.

Buddhism in Daily Life

Buddhist meditation applied to our everyday lives...

Laughter Over Tears

Where books, movies, anger, confusion and musing live together in sin.

Sunra Rainz

Poetry. Art. Photography. Musings.

A girl seeking joy and serenity

Silver Birch Press

Poetry & Prose...from Prompts

whimsy~mimsy

a few words spewing from my soul...

naïve haircuts

The daily addict

The daily life of an addict in recovery

The Sixpence at Her Feet

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • mlewisredford
    • Join 1,847 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • mlewisredford
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...