Zen poetry

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

All words, being only "parts", will always involve paradox, never capturing the whole, which is unknowable. Words only invite other words, another perspective.

Life/truth can be lived but not thought.

The road goes on forever, even for the horse. We always come back to where we started and always know it for the first time. Ecclesiastes was wrong, there is always something new under the sun.

Just ignore me. I'm talking to myself.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

All words, being only "parts", will always involve paradox, never capturing the whole, which is unknowable.

Give us a simple example, pls. Cuz I'm not getting that all words do.

We always come back to where we started...

YES! This is not mentioned often.
Now why do you say ..and 'know it for the first time', tho? What made you say that?

Just ignore me.

I'm really trying to.

[Miss Hepburn]

Th dog jumped in the water.
The bird flew overhead.
I saw it all.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Give us a simple example, pls. Cuz I'm not getting that all words do.

YES! This is not mentioned often.
Now why do you say ..and 'know it for the first time', tho? What made you say that?
I'm really trying to.

I mean words as part of constructs to seek to capture Reality. They can never manage it. Maybe "paradox" is the wrong word.

The other words were T.S.Eliots, from Four Quartets. Words stay with me until they fade. Those remain. It is the Pure Land way of no-calculation.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Context is everything

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Here's another one, this time W H Auden.....

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it
Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert.


So you can stay in Eden and not suffer the fall, but Reality sees the Fall as necessary, in order to know it for the first time.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

And the above are just words. Just take what you need and leave the rest

I'm done for the moment.

Mindfully I mix
Milk, eggs, flour.
A pinch of salt, vanilla flavored sugar.
I won't eat them, but my loved ones like them

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

Here's another one, this time W H Auden.....
For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it
Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert.

So you can stay in Eden and not suffer the fall, but Reality sees the Fall as necessary, in order to know it for the first time.

Auden, good one.

Sure, when you have looked all over and see there is nothing that's satisfying --that's when the Journey Home starts consciously ...
and (my take) you see nothing is new at all....
you begin to remember perfectly who you are, where you came from and are now beginning the process ---as when the river mixes with the ocean again from whence it came. Ahhh...home.

[sky]

Wherever my thoughts go... I am there.

[Unseeking Seeker]

who do you look for in the wilderness
there is no one here, oh hermit