Thomas Centolella: In the Evening We Shall Be Examined...

“In the evening we shall be examined on love.”

 -St. John of the Cross
 

 And it won’t be multiple choice,
though some of us would prefer it that way.
Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on
when we should be sticking to the point, if not together.
In the evening there shall be implications
our fear will change to complications. No cheating,
we’ll be told, and we’ll try to figure out the cost of being true
to ourselves. In the evening when the sky has turned
that certain blue, blue of exam books, blue of no more
daily evasions, we shall climb the hill as the light empties

and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city

 and try to fill in the blanks. And we won’t be tested

 like defendants on trial, cross-examined

till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No,

in the evening, after the day has refused to testify,

 we shall be examined on love like students

who don’t even recall signing up for the course

and now must take their orals, forced to speak for once

from the heart and not off the top of their heads.

And when the evening is over and it’s late,

 the student body asleep, even the great teachers

retired for the night, we shall stay up

and run back over the questions, each in our own way:

 what’s true, what’s false, what unknown quantity

 will balance the equation, what it would mean years from now

to look back and know

we did not fail.
 

-  Thomas Centolella, Lights and Mysteries 
 

Sharon Salzberg: It Is Never Too Late

It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. 

When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. 

The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before.

Its never too late to take a moment to look.

― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

 

Robert Frost: A Prayer In Spring

A Prayer In Spring

 

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; 
And give us not to think so far away 
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here 
All simply in the springing of the year. 

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; 
And make us happy in the happy bees, 
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. 

And make us happy in the darting bird 
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, 
And off a blossom in mid air stands still. 

For this is love and nothing else is love, 
The which it is reserved for God above 
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

- Robert Frost

 

Sharon Salzberg: To Be Truly Loving and Compassionate

 Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.

― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness  

William Stafford: The Gift

The Gift

Time wants to show you a different country.  It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.
 

It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways.  (And sometimes it's turn about.)
You get tired of that.  Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain.  It is called happiness.
 

It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you.  It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."
 

~ William Stafford ~
 

(The Way It Is)

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Alan Cohen: The Past As Enemy or Friend

View the past as your enemy, and it will be an albatross. 
View it as your friend, and it will give you wings.

― Alan Cohen

 

Rachel Naomi Remen: Reclaiming Ourselves

Reclaiming ourselves usually means coming to recognize and accept that we have in us both sides of everything. We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength. These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life. Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. It is a real world. In calling ourselves "heads" or "tails," we may never own and spend our human currency, the pure gold of which our coin is made.

But judgment may heal over time. One of the blessings of growing older is the discovery that many of the things I once believed to be my shortcomings have turned out in the long run to be my strengths, and other things of which I was unduly proud have revealed themselves in the end to be among my shortcomings. Things that I have hidden from others for years turn out to be the anchor and enrichment of my middle age. What a blessing it is to outlive your self-judgments and harvest your failures.

― Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal