October 2000
In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of the One who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts.
- Henri J.M. Nouwen The Only Necessary Thing.
In the west, we are accustomed to valuing our worth and the worth of others based not simply on what is achieved, but by the level of independence found there. A successful person is admired until it is found that their business or wealth was inherited, then they are often dismissed. Even in spiritual matters we want to insist on independence, understanding all possibility, all completeness as inherent within ourselves. In the quiet we can find the balance necessary to see both our immeasurable worth and our finitude, looking to the One who is beyond all and opening ourselves to receive that which comes as the greatest gift: unconditional love.
- Woodcutter
November 1999
"If we set our foot upon the path of darkness, we will walk into darkness. If we set it on the road to light, we will walk toward the light. It is a fundamental law of the human heart. When Francis tells us to sow love where there is hatred, he is invoking that same law. He is not telling us that we have to manifest love in full flower, only that we must sow a seed of love, because he knows that if we plant a seed--whether it be a seed of love, pardon, faith, hope, light, or joy--it will grow if it is tended and will soon become strong enough to stand in witness against the dark forces against which it is arrayed".
- Kent Nerburn - Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of Saint Fancis
"Even if you cannot go yet in the direction of beauty, please try to turn yourself in that direction, because it is the only way for the future to be possible. This is the most important message. You don't need to be a saint or a bodhisattva, but try to go in that direction only. You don't need to be an angel; try to go in the direction of the angel only".
-Sister Chan Khong, quoted by China Galland in The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion.
What more can I add to these wise words? We often are stopped by the enormity of the task, to be always loving, always compassionate, always centered. But this is the work of a lifetime. Don't be discouraged, and more importantly, don't be afraid to begin. Failure is not insincerity, it is human, and probably somewhat inevitable. On this road, failure will not last, but each decision to act lovingly, to apply yourself to the good of another is of eternal significance. Move in the direction of love.
-Woodcutter
June 1999
Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely
In the form of a laurel, slightly darker than all
Other green, with tiny waves on the edges
Of every leaf (like the smile of a breeze) - : why then
have to be human?
Oh not because happiness exists,
That too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.
Not out of curiosity, not as practice for the heart, which
Would exist in the laurel too…
But because truly being here is so much; because
everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some
strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.
Perhaps we are here in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window-
at most: column, tower…But to say them, you must
understand,
oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves
ever dreamed of existing. Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may
shudder with joy?
Ranier Maria Rilke : From the Ninth Duino Elegy
To develop our attention so that we can actually see what is around us will help us to then
see what is inside of us as well. To learn to really say house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree,
window…..the simple and material is not in opposition to the spiritual. Learn to hold them both because
truly being here is so much.
-Woodcutter
May 1999
If things are dying or falling away, we dismiss it, we refuse to see it as the second half of the very same cycle and think there is something “wrong” with us. We think something terrible has happened and we need to do a whole list of things to put it right. Much of our stress and subsequent exhaustion at work comes from our wish to keep ourselves at full luminescence all month, even when our interior “moon” may be just a sliver in the sky…what would my life be like if I had as much faith in the parts of me that were fading away as I had in the parts of me that were growing?”
David Whyte – The Heart Aroused
Though it may seem obvious to say,we need both day and night to make a complete cycle. Often we resist, wanting to hold to one or the other. But it is this cyclic movement which marks the journey and it is the journey itself which is ultimately the measure of our growth. We want a straight path free of switchbacks and obstacles, but rarely is this the way. Since that is so, as any traveller will tell you, it is best to walk when you are strong and rest when you are tired. Your life is not an endurance contest.
- Woodcutter
April 1999
“…almost everything we come across in life is nonlinear, that is, the shortest point between A and B is not a straight line because there almost never exists a straight line to follow in the first place. The line is an evolving path that actually changes according to the first steps we ourselves take to begin the journey. Most paths, in fact, metaphorical, literal, or mathematical, take the form of an iterative equation, an equation where the values and events it produces are continually fed back into the equation again and again, influencing any future values it may throw out. Every action, then, no matter how small, influences every future action, no matter how large.”
“Without the fiery embrace of everything from which we demand immunity, including depression and failure, the personality continues to seek power over life rather than power through the experience of life. We throw the precious metal of our own experience away, exchanging it for the fool’s gold of superimposed image, an image of what our experience should be rather than what it actually is…”
David Whyte – The Heart Aroused
There may be no emotion so powerful, so compelling as the need to bring resolution to some area of tension or pain in your life. You may feel like a trapeze performer who, having let go of the bar, finds yourself tumbling, slow motion, in mid air waiting for the other trapeze bar to appear. Neither here nor there, you feel ungrounded, exposed, wondering if it will be there in time. Consider though, for just a moment, if you found yourself floating, suddenly weightless. Would that not make a difference in the waiting? The bar will eventually come swinging within your reach, though you often cannot control it’s arc or timing. But there is something that you can control. Falling or floating, how you view the waiting is up to you.
- Woodcutter
February 1999
For ten years, a king sat in his chamber to hear petitions and dispense justice. Each day a holy man in the robe of a beggar appeared and without a word, offered him a piece of fruit. Although he always accepted the trifling gift, the king did not give it any thought but merely passed it on to his treasurer, who later tossed it from an upper trellised window into a neglected corner of the treasure house.
One day, ten years after the first appearance of the beggar, a tame monkey, which had escaped from the women’s apartments in the inner palace, came bounding into the king’s chamber and jumped on the throne. Because the king had just received the beggar’s fruit, he playfully handed it over to the monkey. When the monkey bit into it, a sparkling jewel dropped out and rolled onto the floor.
His eyes growing wide, the king turned to his treasurer and asked what had become of the beggar’s many other gifts of fruit. Excusing himself, the treasurer went to the treasure house and made his way to the area directly under the trellised window, which he had not visited all these years. There, on the floor, lay a mass of fruit in various stages of decomposition and, amidst their remains, a heap of priceless gems.
- From The King and the Corpse, Ed.Joseph Campbell. (Quoted by Evelyn Bassoff in Mothering Ourselves – Help and Healing for Adult Daughters.)
We should be careful not to disregard the simple and unassuming in life. Often the greatest wisdom comes very simply and quietly. Here the jewels are hidden in a piece of common fruit given by a spiritual one who does not appear spiritual at all. And it takes the silly monkey to uncover the truth. Let us try to stay awake so that we might recognize the stranger when she comes with an unassuming gift of everyday experience. And let us try to not take ourselves too seriously so that, like the monkey, we might stumble across the hidden jewel that our king, occupied with so many daily affairs, is unable to perceive.
- Woodcutter
January 1999
But just how far can we implement this planetal awareness? We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world; to digest intellectually all the information spread out in public print; and to implement in action every ethical impulse aroused by our hearts and minds. The inter-relatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold. Or rather- for I believe the heart is infinite - modern communication loads us with more problems than the human frame can carry.
- Gifts from the Sea , Anne Morrow Lindbergh
We can easily become overwhelmed by the needs we see around us. The suffering of people thousands of miles away are immediately present to us. But there also is much suffering closer to home, and we can feel as inadequate in the face of those needs as we feel towards those which are in another country. How can we help? What difference can we make when there is so much need?
The answer may be that when we regard the mass of need, there is little we can do. But if we will look for the one person who has been placed in our path, perhaps for that one we can do something. It may be food, or shelter, or a ride to work. It may be to simply sit with them and listen, to let them know that they will be strong again. The little things can be very powerful in a person's life, and they can only occur between persons. The simple act. The single person. That may well be all that is asked of us.
- Woodcutter
December 1998
There once lived a poor farmer who had an only son. One day as the son was out working in the field, the farmer’s horse got loose and ran off. This horse was the farmer’s only possession and his friends , upon hearing of this, came to him to express their consolation. "How terrible that your horse has run away!" The farmer would only nod his head and reply "Perhaps, but we shall see"
The next day the farmer’s only son set off to find the horse and after searching many days was able to track it down and catch it. He sent news of this ahead to the village and upon hearing the message the farmer’s neighbors came again to him. How wonderful! How fortunate that your horse has been recovered! As before, the farmer only smiled and said "perhaps, but we shall see".
Unfortunately, as the farmer’s son was riding the horse back to the village, it reared up and threw him into a ditch, breaking his leg. The son managed to get back to the village with the horse, but the doctor was unable to reset the leg and it would remain crooked for the rest of the boy’s life. Again the farmers neighbors came to him. "How good that your son has found your horse and brought it back, but at such a cost! How terrible that he is now a cripple!" With perplexing consistency, the farmer only nodded his head and replied "Perhaps, but we shall see"
Things settled back into their routine as things often do but, later that year, war was declared on a neighboring province and the local warlord went throughout the country into all the villages, conscripting the young men into his army. Because he was crippled the farmer’s only son was not taken, but most of the other young men from the village went off to the war, never to return again. Seeing that the farmer’s son was spared from battle, the neighbors of the farmer said to him, "How fortunate you are! You must be blessed! Who could know that your son’s crooked leg would have kept him from the army, saving his life. It is a very good thing that he was not taken by the warlord!" As before, the poor farmer only nodded his head, this time with a slight smile in his eyes, and said "Perhaps, but we shall see"
- From “Sophia”
There is a strength which can stand firm in the face of a force which pushes itself against us, when we must stiffen against that which is meant to harm us or those we love, against injustice or abuse of the weak or helpless. This is a pushing strength. In this country, we like pushing strength. We are inclined towards it.
There is also a strength which is found in acceptance. This is a yielding strength. There is a relaxation of mind and body which precedes the moment of contact, and this too, is power. There is a time to block the raging of the wind and a time to bend with it. Who knows what new seeds are being carried on that gust?
- Woodcutter
October 1998
Perfection is not something you can acquire like a hat – by walking into a place and trying on several and walking out again ten minutes later with one on your head that fits. Yet people sometimes enter monasteries with that idea. They are eager to get the first available system fitted on to them and to spend the rest of their lives walking around with the thing on their heads.
They devour books of piety indiscriminately, not stopping to consider how much of what they read applies, or can be applied, to their own lives. Their chief concern is to acquire as many externals as possible, and to decorate their persons with the features they have so rapidly come to associate with perfection. And they walk around in clothes cut to the measure of other people and other situations.
- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
In our age, we have so much access to the teachings of various paths of wisdom, but many have been distracted by this very blessing, flitting from one discipline to another as they look for something which will satisfy them. And the truth is, much of what is available today is little more than mass merchandising of tepid platitudes and magical thinking. Wisdom has become a commodity, easily sampled and discarded. As you search for wisdom, you may travel down a number of paths, but be careful that the journey does not become the end itself. There is absolute truth. We must seek with the intention of finding it. And once found, it must become more than fashion, it must become the ordering dynamic of our life.
- Woodcutter
September 1998
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives.
They waste their years in vain efforts to become some other poet, some other saint. For many absurd reasons, they are convinced that they are obliged to become somebody else who died two hundred years ago and who lived in circumstances utterly alien to their own. They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems or possess somebody else’s spirituality.
- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
The simplest thing is to be who we are, since it is the only true option we have. But it is the most difficult thing to arrive at because we must first understand who we are and learning to know ourselves can be many years work. For some the understanding comes in a flash of insight, but for most it is the gradual peeling away of all that is incidental:
The need to please, the desire to emulate what we are drawn to in another, the youthful proclivity towards trying to do everything, be everything. Don’t be discouraged, as you continue on the path to understanding yourself, you will one day see that the journey itself, with all its detours and dead-ends has not delayed your understanding but was, in fact, essential to it.
- Woodcutter
June 1998
It is said that a young man once came to Socrates and asked to be taught the secret of wisdom. Socrates made no reply and the young man continued to press him until, still without saying a word, he turned and began to walk away. The young man, thinking that he had been refused, was disheartened until he saw the great philosopher turn and gesture for him to follow.
They walked in silence until they came to the shore. Socrates continued into the water and beckoned the young man to join him. Speaking for the first time, he said “Look closely into the water and tell me what you see”. Thinking this was a test, the young man bent over to peer with intense concentration. However, at that moment, Socrates grabbed him by the back of his head and pushed his face under the water, holding him there until the young man began to struggle and fight for breath. At the last moment, Socrates released his hold and the young man bolted up angry and sputtering. “Are you mad?” he asked.
Socrates simply smiled and calmly replied “What were you thinking about while I held your head under the water? What was your single preoccupation?"
“I was thinking about air, came the reply”
Socrates responded “You came to me asking for the secret of wisdom as if it were a fruit to be picked from the nearest tree. This is not the way. If you will learn, then hear this,
When you desire wisdom as strongly as you desired air, when you are willing to struggle for it, then you will find it”
How strong is your desire?
-Woodcutter
May 1998
"Listen, Kamala, when you throw a stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through water, without doing anything, without bestrirring himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal. That is what Siddhartha learned from the Samanas. It is what fools call magic and what they think is caused by demons….Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait, and fast"
Hermann Hesse - Siddhartha.
When we have something we want to accomplish, we want to move into action. Looking around, checking the calendar, evaluating our progress, we may feel that the more we do the closer we bring ourselves to our goal. There are times when this is true and we need to understand what is required to be done and then take resolute action. But we must ask ourselves whether action always requires movement. That is, could it be true that there are times when we must sense the flow of our lives and allow it to decide the timing of events, the pace at which our vision unfolds? And when we become still in this way, isn’t this a form of action? A deliberate choosing? This is the delicate balance between waiting and working There is a season for everything and either may be appropriate. Choosing to wait requires great patience and trust since we are so conditioned towards action, and wisdom to know when the time of waiting has ended. We are not perfect, and so we will choose imperfectly. That’s ok, there is time yet and always an opportunity to make a different choice. Learn to rest and to wait.
-Woodcutter
April 1998
"A Benedictine sister from the Philippines once told me what her community did when some sisters took to the streets in the popular revolt against the Marcos regime. Some did not think it proper for nuns to demonstrate in public, let alone risk arrest. In a group meeting that began and ended with prayer, the sisters who wished to continue demonstrating explained that this was for them a religious obligation; those who disapproved also had their say. Everyone spoke; everyone heard and gave counsel.
It was eventually decided that the nuns who were demonstrating should continue to do so; those who wished to express solidarity but were unable to march would prepare food and provide medical assistance to the demonstrators, and those who disapproved would pray for everyone. The sister laughed and said. "If one of the conservative sisters was praying that we young, crazy ones would come to our senses and stay off the streets, that was O.K. We were still a community"
-Kathleen Norris, Dakota.
To be able to allow each other our differences while still being truly accepting can be a difficult thing for most of us. Secretly we may hope the other will ‘come around’ to our way of thinking. Perhaps they will. Perhaps not. It is possible that they are hoping the same for us. No matter. True community is not homogenization. It is not a toleration of coexistence. It is ba celebration of difference, an openness to ongoing learning, the ability to explore lives and thoughts unlike our own. How can we build into one another’s lives if we each bring the same thoughts, feelings and experiences? In seeing who we are not, we can better understand who we are. This is not always easy and takes a lot of practice and a lot of trust. In our families, our workplaces, or our schools opportunities present themselves. Grasp them.
-Woodcutter
March 1998
"Spiritual life is not mental life. It is not thought alone. Nor is it, of course, a life of sensation, a life of "feeling" and experiencing the things of the spirit, and the things of God.
Nor does the spiritual life exclude thought and feeling. It needs both. It is not just life concentrated at the "high point" of the soul, a life from which the mind and the imagination and the body are excluded. If it were so, few people could lead it. And again, if that were the spiritual life, it would not be a life at all. If man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and faith.
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions…our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts."
-Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude
It is important to start from where you are. Depth of understanding and subtlety of thought are, in the long run, of little value if they don’t change the way we live from moment to moment. That is why Sophia used the metaphor of the weight chained to our leg. When we know a thing but do not live it, it is not as if it simply goes away. We drag it behind us everyday. When we begin, however tentatively or awkwardly to allow our beliefs to shape us, they become lighter and we realize that their heaviness was an expression of the tension between the things we believed and the choices we made. Better to hold an imperfect understanding which you practice than to collect much wisdom and live none of it. Start from where you are.
-Woodcutter
February 1998
"We are challenged on every hand to work untiringly to achieve excellence in our life work. Not all men are called to specialized or professional jobs; even fewer rise to the heights of genius in the arts and sciences; many are called to be laborers in factories, fields, and streets. But no work is unimportant and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well" - Martin Luther King Jr.
The master anticipates things that are difficult while they
are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a
previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things. - Tao Te Ching
It can be hard to remember that our lives take their shape as the accumulation of a hundred small acts, thoughts and decisions which we make every day. Because of this, nothing is inconsequential. Everything matters. Nothing is so small that our future course cannot be altered by it, no job so mundane that it does not warrant our full presence and attention. God is found in the washing of a dish, the life we dream of in the sweeping of a street…if we sweep with purpose and resolution. As we bring attention to the moments of our days, our lives (which are the accumulation of those days), are attended to as well. The broom becomes a tool of our practice and a doorway to peace of mind and acceptance. And acceptance allows us to see with clarity and move freely, staying or moving on as we desire. There are no small acts.
-Woodcutter
January 1998
Once a poor peasant was caught hunting in the King’s forest. He was arrested, charged with poaching and treason, and brought before the king who sentenced him to death. Thinking quickly, in an effort to save his life, the peasant said:
"Sire, if you will spare my life I will make you the most famous king that has ever been or ever will be"
Now the King, being a King, was intrigued. It would be a very good thing to be that famous, he thought. "Speak on", he commanded the peasant.
"Well sire, everyone knows that you have a beautiful horse. Powerful, strong, and regal, truly a Kings mount. But still, after all, only a horse. If you will spare my life, I will teach that horse to talk. No one has ever possessed such an animal and this will surely make you the most famous king there ever was."
Now the king thought about this, and though a skeptical man, the call of fame was just too strong. "Very well" he replied. "I shall give you one year. In twelve months, you will appear before me again, and my horse will speak to me. If not, your life will be forfeit."
With that he released the peasant who went quickly back to his village. But word of his bargain with the King preceded him and when he arrived his family and neighbors met him and began to question how he could make such a ridiculous promise.
"Well" said the peasant, "A great many things can happen in a year. The king could die. I could die....or that horse might learn to speak.
That peasant was not so silly after all. He bet his life on one of the most fundamental things which we can know about life: Everything Changes. And change itself is usually neutral. That is, the value it carries for us, whether positive or negative is imposed on it from outside. In other words, whether a change is good or bad for us is based on how we choose to respond to it. Hang in there, nothing very good or very bad lasts forever. As a friend of mine likes to say, "Ask yourself What’s great about this?" and then keep looking until you can find something. That’s not denial or repression or childish make-believe. It’s a realistic approach to one of life’s most basic elements. Everything Changes.
-Woodcutter
November 1997
There were two elders living in a cell, and they never had so much as one quarrel with one another. One therefore said to the other: "Come on, let us have at least one quarrel, like other men." The other said: "I don’t know how to start a quarrel" The first said: "I will take this brick and place it here between us. Then I will say: it is mine. After that, you will say: It is mine. This is what leads to a dispute and a fight." So then they placed the brick between them, one said: "It is mine" and the other replied to the first: "I do believe that it is mine". The first one said again: "It is not yours, it is mine." So the other answered: "Well then, if it is yours, take it!" Thus they did not manage after all to get into a quarrel.
-From The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers.
In order to have peace, we must learn to let go of the need to own. We want to claim and hold possessions and people and even circumstances and moments of our life. But these are only illusion. I’m not saying that nothing is real, but only that much of what makes us unhappy is a matter of perspective, of needing to feel we can own (and thus control). But we can decide to enjoy the people in our lives without defining them as extensions of ourselves, to keep our arms open to both receive them as they come and to bless them if they go, to hold those material things which are in our possession with a relaxed grip, prepared to enjoy them or to let them go as we find the circumstances of our lives changing. Like the monks, we can learn to say: "Take it then!"
-Woodcutter
October 1997
A young boy traveled across Japan to the school of a famous martial artist.
When he arrived at the dojo he was given an audience by the sensei.
"What do you wish from me?" the master asked.
"I wish to be your student and become the finest kareteka in the land,"
the boy replied. "How long must I study?"
"Ten years at least," the master answered.
"Ten years is a long time," said the boy.
"What if I studied twice as hard as all your other students?"
"Twenty years," replied the master.
"Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?"
"Thirty years," was the master's reply.
"How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will
take longer?" the boy asked.
"The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is
only one eye left with which to find the Way."
In the desire for mastery of anything, it is important to see that the value lies in the journey. As the depths of your study increases, the end moves further away. As your skill increases, so will your awareness of how little you know. Be happy, it is the elusive prey which makes the pursuit worthwhile.
-Woodcutter
September 1997
Each morning is a new beginning of our life. Each day is a finished whole. The present day marks the boundary of our cares and concerns. It is long enough to find God or to lose him, to keep faith or fall into disgrace. God created day and night for us so we need not wander without boundaries, but may be able to see in every morning the goal of the evening ahead. Just as the ancient sun rises anew every day, so the eternal mercy of God is new every morning. Every morning God gives us the gift of comprehending anew his faithfulness of old; thus, in the midst of our life with God, we may daily begin a new life with him. The first moments of the day are for God's liberating grace, God's sanctifying prescence. Before the heart unlocks itself for the world, God wants to open it for himself; before the ear takes in the countless voices of the day, it should hear in the early hours the voice of the Creator and Redeemer. God prepared the stillness of the first morning for himself. It should remain his.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
August 1997
Mastery in any discipline is known by a persons ability to act with fluid grace and instinctive ease. The mind and the body are no longer experienced as two distinctions but a single intent. Then thinking and doing are the same action. The mind and body are free. However, the path to this attainment is one of conscious and focused attention. The mind and body are not free, but disciplined to constant repetition and practice. In this practice, the simple and the basic must not be neglected. The awareness of a subtle shift of weight, the turning of a single finger, the timing of the breath. A correct stance is the beginning of mastery.
-Woodcutter