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