Life is a journey. Death is a return to the earth. The universe is like an inn. The passing years are like dust. –Buddhist Poem This poem is used to describe the Buddhist concept of impermanence (The World’s Religions by Huston Smith, pp. 116-117). Of course, we are constantly changing . . . our bodies, […]
Archives for October 2012
A Poem Each Moment
“’When one is highly alert to language, then nearly everything begs to be a poem.’ –James Tate Tate tells us that an awareness of language helps us to see the poem in all things, but I would add that an awareness of all things—not just lush farmland in the early summer. but crowded city streets, […]
Flame Eternal
William H. Shannon begins the last chapter of Silence on Fire with a quote from “The Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot: “Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before or after, But a lifetime burning in every moment.” Later, Shannon alludes to a Zen poem exhibiting a similar sentiment: “Silently a flower booms, In silence […]