Frank Stella

Agnes Martin

Isn’t it extraordinary that our minds cannot stay still for longer than a few moments without grasping after distraction? They are so restless and preoccupied that sometimes I think that living in a city in the modern world, we are already like the tormented beings in the intermediate state after death, where the consciousness is said to be agonizingly restless.

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.

From Rigpa Glimpse of the Day. Quote from ”Glimpse After Glimpse ” by Sogyal Rinpoche

Come in out of the darkness.
Come in where the fire casts shadows of longing.
Sit near each other. Hold hands

while I tell you a story that has never been told,
a story with music, a flute and singing, a drum and dancing,
a story of life’s circle and the hungry wolves

waiting for caribou, and the caribou lingering
over a feast of lichen, and ravens poised in the trees
at the edges of the wolves’ eyes,

a story with a grandmother spider
stealing a piece of the sun,
a story with medicine plants and sacred weeds,

a story of how men and women found each other,
of how coyote got his cunning, of arrow boy,
of the owl’s beak tapping, always the owl, the death bird,

and the mouse, timorous, scuttling into its den,
a story of you, and you, and you.
What does it mean this dream fruit?

Nothing more than to peel and eat
the sweet juicy flesh, to let its seeds
become part of your spirit.

Long after I am gone
you will remember a story that never happened
how things that never were came into being.

—Dolores Stewart
from Doors to the Universe

“There is no ultimate goal in meditation. Meditation is an acceptance of the mind, however it comes to you. And the mind changes all the time, just as the ocean waves change. Sometimes the water is turbulent, sometimes calm. Thoughts rise and then disappear; you don’t grab hold of them. The heart beats, the lungs breathe, and the mind continues to produce thoughts. Even if you’ve practiced for a long time, it will still produce thoughts, but you’re no longer thrown by them. You don’t have control of your mind; it goes where it wants to go. But with practice, you can have a relationship with it.”

Natalie Goldberg in The Sun Magazine: “Keep the Hand Moving: Zen and the Art of Writing Practice”

We stopped at perfect days
and got out of the car.
The wind glanced at her hair.
It was as simple as that.
I turned to say something—

—Richard Brautigan

A lust for life can never be sufficed without the conscious effort of the individual. One should feel obliged to hunt and cultivate wanderlust of the mind. To feed on inspiration, to quench their thirst with inspiration and without remorse hunt it. It is everywhere and in everything. One must strive for infinite creation, for one is, and will always be, an infinite creation.

At such a ripe age, it is not healthy to dwell on death. That journey is yet to come, and it is then that one should ponder the other. For now, you are surrounded with and a part of, the resplendence of existence. It is a time to rejoice, love, and embrace all that is near and dear to you. It is an effervescent chapter of your life’s celebration in which your potential is infinite. It is a time to burn the brightest you will ever burn, and it is a time to ignite and excite that flame in the heart of lovers and others.

One may revel in baseless loneliness, a selfish act really. For one craves companionship purely for recognition of being. One does not seek the other purely for the other itself, but entirely for the psychical and psychological stimulation the other provides. One intuitively seeks this communion with the same vigour as one pursues physical nourishment. Perhaps it is an unspoken agreement of the human subconscious to selfishly seek companionship and thereby perpetuate an endless cycle of half fulfilled longing, which in turn keeps us moving and chasing something that we only just elementarily grasp in concept.

Yum

Dakini

He who has not experienced death

Is like an inexperienced father.

He who has not come to life after death

Is like a man suddenly struck dumb.

He who has never been wise

Is like a youth who has never been beautiful.

The stupid man who becomes wise

Is like a beggar who becomes king.

The dog who becomes master

Is like the victor in the revolution.

The master who becomes a dog

Is like a man who has awakened from a pleasant dream.

Meeting an old friend

Is like reading your own autobiography.

Finding a new friend

Is like composing music.

Chogyam writing a poem

is like a king inspecting his soldiers.

- Chogyam Trungpa

“The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.”

- Carlos Castaneda.

"The World is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round, and it has thrills and chills and is very brightly colored, and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while."

- Bill Hicks.