A few poems

Here are some poems which I’ve got permission to share - but the author doesn’t want to be known.

The lesson of the tree

Wide are the roots of the mighty forest tree
Finding support for the great canopy
And under the ground they burrow away
Finding moisture from little streams
Holding on to the Earth with tenacious feet
Until age or illness or flood or wind,
fire or the teeth of a saw
Some earthquake or volcanic flow
A storm of terrible winds
Something shakes free its grip on the soil
And it must let go
And fall
Away from the rare air
descend the young sunkissed leaves
Uprooted are those tentacle roots
Only sorrow is left for those beings who lived
In dependence on it
New beings move in to the slow decaying timber
But soon - but not as soon as our lives end
There will remain no trace

Author Anonymous


Leaving me is the heart to fight
And one day I may stand
Within the earth
Like the Great Trees
Immovable while
The fire draws closer
Burnt away
will be ugly things and all things
Even though I will be
plunged in coolness

Author Anonymous


Tree tops sway
in a breath of wind
gently to and fro
without
within
to
my body
Stillness
hangs in the air
and gathers and spreads
ever lightly
stopping more
and more
all nature’s
winds
Are
Still

Author Anonymous


The little ant stops awhile
To drink from the
Glistening water drop on
My arm as I gaze
Lovingly at him,
Glad he has drunk his fill.

Author Anonymous

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A nice moment of Metta practice. :slight_smile:

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teardrops brimming in opening eyes.
all that begins, ceases.
thank you, elders.
may all flow free
into the stream.

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Let one not trace back the past
Or yearn for the future-yet-to-come.
That which is past is left behind
Unattained is the “yet-to-come.”
But that which is present he discerns —
With insight as and when it comes.
The Immovable — the-non-irritable.
In that state should the wise one grow
Today itself should one bestir
Tomorrow death may come — who knows?
For no bargain can we strike
With Death who has his mighty hosts.
But one who dwells thus ardently
By day, by night, untiringly
Him the Tranquil Sage has called
The Ideal Lover of Solitude. MN131

Thoughts about the past are dealt with as a thought in the present, as in MN20 for example, though the content is about the past.

With metta

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I think that’s a legitimate way of dealing with the past @Mat

But…

According to the first suggestion offered by the the Buddha in MN 20, it is also quite legitimate to train one’s perception to value and use substitution of another more wholesome state.

So yes,

…because this can lead one to be present and deepen presence.

But…the first suggestion by the Buddha in MN 20 - here’s Bhante Sujato’s currrent translation:

Take a mendicant who is focusing on some aspect of meditation that gives rise to bad, unskillful thoughts connected with desire, hate, and delusion. That mendicant should focus on some other aspect of meditation connected with the skillful.

…this suggests that one can skip the intermediate step of even focusing on the “past as a present thought”. It suggests that we shouldn’t doubt (a hindrance) our capability as human beings to mentally turn away from one thing and put our attention on another.

The danger in viewing past thougts as being present ones is that we can easily get sucked into believing and being in those emotions and thoughts. Thus any hope of being truly present is gone.

But it’s a work in progress. I am still in the process of training myself to turn this into a stronger habit: to just turn straight away to more wholesomeness/presence. But what is different for me now, and it was the first step, was to recognise the validity of that first suggestion of the Buddha’s; to also recognise that I was capable of doing it.

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