• Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Introduction
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    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
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    • Chapter 6
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mlewisredford

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

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: patience

– sigh! –

20 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2014, 7*, attention, awareness, balance, being, Bodhichitta, confession, conscientiousness, dark, dharma, doing, effort, emptiness, faces, giving, identity, India, institution, jewel, joke, living, meditation, Nalanda, paramitas, patience, posture, practice, realisation, Shantideva, sitting, sky, society, speech, step, talking, voices, vow, wisdom, words

                                – sigh! –

they built the throne high
                homage to the words which reach to the sky
                                homage to the words which dissolve into sky
                                              due and proper

                they built it too high
                                              with no steps
                                              with no steps!
                                                              the worst sort of idolatry
                                              all homage and no practice
                                all industry and no yield
                all protocol and no truth
                realisation stuck in amber
                                              the way of all institutions with walls

                                they seek to expose indolence
                as earnestly as if it were true practice
                                              for the sake of the Teaching
                                they would renounce even eating sleeping and defecating
                                              for the sake of all beings
                                the Teaching cannot be besmirched

                                              wide sky everywhere
                but it is so dark …

                                              the throne is not high
                                I am not low
                                              I shall sit on the throne
                                I shall sit on the floor
                                              shall I give them a talk
                                or shall I talk
                                              I shall talk

                of jewels in refuse
                     and refuse in hiding
                          of vows to pause
                               and pause to keep finding
                                    of finding to step
                                         and stepping with poise
                                              of poise to balance
                                                   and balance to sit
                                                        of the sky the sky the sky
                                                             of the sky and everything

                look at their faces –
                                some of them got my jokes
                                              (a few of them saw them coming)
                most looked around the place to see where my voice was coming from –
                                all of them are so perfect
                                              but variously blind

                                              anyway
                                I’m off to the South now … oh!
                                                              I never left!

 

if you’ve made it all the way down here it might make fuller sense if read before or after this, or this, or this; or it might not, or it might both alternately, or it might neither permanently; either way, or not, I am happy to have propagated the name of Shantideva

 

 

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

attention wormhole: sunny morning
awareness wormhole: no biggie:
balance & voices wormhole: should is good when / too used to cruise
being & doing & emptiness & realisation wormhole: that
Bodhichitta 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
faces wormhole: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
giving wormhole: the utter beauty of giving when receiving
identity & living & sky & speech & talking wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
meditation wormhole: posture
posture wormhole: smiling
practice wormhole: poessay IX – … just saying, is all II
Shantideva wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
sitting wormhole: there are patient listeners
society & words wormhole: Dr Strange III – the needs of billions

 

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there are patient listeners

10 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

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2014, 6*, coffee shop, compassion, feet, identity, listening, love, meaning, patience, sitting, speech, syntax, talking, terrace

 

 

 

                                there are patient listeners
                sit upright on wicker chairs on the terrace
                                                              just
                                the right foot wrapping
                                              higher – lower
                                              around the left heel
                                                                                 foot-poised
                                              weighing
                                              testing
                every single ‘like’ and ‘so’ parenthesis and meander
                                of the talker –
                                              litany of I and eye –
                                buoying with scansion
                slight steer with syntax and closed bracket while
                                              parsing the rejoinder
                                which might never need
                                              be used
                                if the map is spread
                                                              wide enough

 

 

 

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

coffee shop wormhole: Maidstone
compassion wormhole: we’re all the same age really
feet wormhole: happy birthday, my love
identity wormhole: Matildenplatz / & Luisen
listening wormhole: sniff
love wormhole: footfall
meaning wormhole: scattered
sitting wormhole: poised patiently for / hours
speech wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
talking wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love

 

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patient

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

2012, 5*, being, growth, patience, sitting, time

 

 

 

                                for the first instant
                                     of sitting
                                I am boggy ground with
                                     the tide up

                                after any duration the tide
                                     ebbs away
                                dramatically leaving me
                                     dry and rutted

                                if I am patient though
                                     the tide
                                will return by itself
                                     waterlogged and soft

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: silent
sitting wormhole: really
time wormhole: seeing / clear

 

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the moral of the story

05 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

2012, 4*, drop, life, patience, talking to myself

 

 

 

                      the moral of the story

                                always
                      is wait patiently

                      through the frustration and ennui
                      and when it all falls away right

                                drop it

                      unless you want another
                      season of it

 

 

 

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

life wormhole: uncompletely
talking to myself wormhole: the / Four Noble Truths / on a train

 

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wrong

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2011, 4*, anxiety, being, endeavour, getting ground, growth, identity, meaning, patience, pointlessness, practice, reality, recognition, significance, sitting, speech, superhero, talking to myself

 

 

 

            all of this intrigue
            all of this writing
            all of this staying up late

            is me trying to get
                      ground under my feet
            I am still trying to get
                      ground under my feet
            ‘haven’t accepted
                      groundlessness

            I still try to find
                      the lonesome stance
            where I can say
                      I am OK
            you can all go ahead
                      and dance your silly dance
                      and play your silly games
            but I will stand here sufficient
                      and not join in
            everything may be pointless
                      but it is not pointless for me
                      I super-heroically find
                                my own point
                                build my own meaning
                                              ahhh, a peaceful sleep

                      dammit
            ‘blown it all
            I just had to go and
                      need the world
                      to recognise my meaning
                      my creations
            from the same world in which
                      I could see no point
                                stood aside from and
                      – no surprise here then –
            they didn’t get it

            they don’t get it
            don’t need it
            haven’t looked at it
            moved on
            bigger picture
            things change
            la-la

            vulnerable
                      and smarting
            I go away and build
            a machine big enough
                      to fill a room
            I’ll show them I’ll
                      show them
            they’ll see I was right
            I’ll stay up all night
            my hair will fall out
            my eyes will bulge bright
            a-ha ha ha ha

            so much of my drive
                      reaching
                      pyramidal
            is only the hub
                      to gather myself
                      to conduct my world

            why oh why don’t I
                      sit still right there
                      in the centre where
                      there is
                      no ground?

            but then when I advise myself
                      ‘lose the drive’
            I feel lost and despondent
            I have relinquished all I thought
            I was and all I was trying
            to achieve

            but if I read the books
                      properly
            I don’t give up the drive
            I aware –
                      I transitively am –
            any one particular moment
                      and let any drive
                      pass
            because I haven’t followed it
            because I haven’t believed in it
                      as the solution
                      to pointlessness

            a hundred times
            then another hundred times
            then a thousand times subconsciously
            then a million times unconsciously

            but to do this even once
            I need to hit the cushion
            a hundred times
            a thousand times
            a million times

            and have the patience
            of staying with
            the complete and utter lack
            of getting somewhere

            the edginess
                      the almost-nausea
            of not doing anything
            that will be furthering
                      my campaign
            of achieving and expressing
                      significance

            that very anxiety mirrored
                      in just sitting
                      doing nothing
            that has impelled me to become
                      overly ambitious
                      overly independent
                      overly judgemental

            and instead of running away
                      from it
                                and proving it wrong
                                I stay
            with it accept it see through
            it become it befriend it and not let it
            become the pole around which
            the markredford universe
                      revolves

            after I have got through
                      ‘I shall sit in perfect posture
                      and have stable concentration’
            and all the little excitement
                      and tragedy that evinces
            then
                      there is the pointlessness
                      naked and clammy and
                      right in my face

            let it pass
                                              it won’t go
            let it remain
                                I can’t keep hold of it
            let it go
                                              arghh
                      just sit
                      still
                      and stop
                      fidgeting

 

 

 

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

being & meaning wormhole: scatter
identity & speech wormhole: kids these days
pointlessness wormhole: rising up
reality wormhole: and
sitting & talking to myself wormhole: sit

 

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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
    • 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

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  • a far grander / Sangha
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 8; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 7; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 6; reflectionary & verses 3-6 embroidery

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