hindu, buddhist and taoist poetry

Joyful in this mountain retreat yet still feeling melancholy,
Studying the Lotus Sutra every day,
Practicing zazen singlemindedly;
What do love and hate matter
When I'm here alone,
Listening to the sound of the rain
late in this autumn evening.

Drifting pitifully in the whirlwind of birth and death,
As if wandering in a dream,
In the midst of illusion I awaken to the true path;
There is one more matter I must not neglect,
But I need not bother now,
As I listen to the sound of the evening rain
Falling on the roof of my temple retreat
In the deep grass of Fukakusa.

Dogen
From: The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace By: Steven Heine

In spring wind
peach blossoms
begin to come apart.
Doubts do not grow
branches and leaves.

My Heart is Like Autumn Moon

The trail to Cold Mountain is faint
the banks of Cold Stream are a jungle
birds constantly chatter away
I hear no sound of people
gusts of wind lash my face
flurries of snow bury my body
day after day, no sun
year after year no spring

I divined and chose a distant place to dwell
T'ien-t'ai; what more is there to say?
Monkeys cry where valley mists are cold,
My grass gate blends with the color of the crags,
I pick leaves to thatch a hut among the pines,
Scoop out a pond and lead a runnel from the spring.
By now I am used to doing without the world,
Picking ferns, I pass the years that are left.

Love is the scent with the lotus born.
It is the silent choirs of petals
Singing the winter’s harmony of uniform beauty.
Love is the song of the soul, singing to God.
It is the balanced rhythmic dance of planets -
sun and moon lit
In the skyey hall festooned with fleecy clouds –
Around the sovereign Silent Will.
It is the thirst of the rose to drink the sunrays
And blush red with life.
‘Tis the promptings of the mother earth
To feed her milk to the tender, thirsty roots,
And to nurse all life.
It is the urge of the sun
To keep all things alive.

Love is the unseen craving of the Mother Divine
That took the protecting father–form,
And that feeds helpless mouths
With milk of mother’s tenderness.
It is the babies’ sweetness,
Coaxing the rain of parental sympathy
To shower upon them.
It is the lover’s unenslaved surrender to the beloved
To serve and solace.
It is the elixir of friendship,
Reviving broken and bruised souls.
It is the martyr’s zeal to shed his blood
For the well-beloved fatherland.
It is the ineffable, silent call of the heart to another
heart.
It is the God-drunk poet’s heartaches
For every creature’s groans.

Love is to enjoy the family rose of petal-beings,
And thence to move to spacious fields -
Passing by portals of social, national, international
sympathy,
On to the limitless Cosmic Home –
To gaze with looks of wonderment,
And to serve all that lives, still or moving.
This is to know what love is.
He knows who lives it.

Love is evolution’s ameliorative call
To the far-strayed sons
To return to Perfection’s home.
It is the call of the beauty – robed ones
To worship the great Beauty.
It is the call of God
Through silent intelligences
And starburst of feelings.

Love is the Heaven
Toward which the flowers, rivers, nations, atoms,
creatures – you and I
Are rushing by the straight path of action right,
Or winding laboriously on error’s path,
All to reach haven there at last.

Paramahansa Yogananda (Gorakhpur, Bengal, 1893. One of the first Spiritual Masters who brought
Yoga to the West)
From: Songs of the Soul

Once in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Lone in the light of that magical grove,
I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Unwilling priestess in thy cruel fane,
Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain,
Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows,
My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows
Anointed with perpetual weariness.
Long have I borne thy service, through the stress
Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights,
Performing thine inexorable rites.

For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice,
But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice:
All the rich honey of my youth's desire,
And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn,
And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire
Of hopes up-leaping like the light of dawn.

I have no more to give, all that was mine
Is laid, a wrested tribute, at thy shrine;
Let me depart, for my whole soul is wrung,
And all my cheerless orisons are sung;
Let me depart, with faint limbs let me creep
To some dim shade and sink me down to sleep.

Mystic Miracle, daughter of Delight,
Life, thou ecstasy,
Let the radius of thy flight
Be eternity.

On thy wings thou bearest high
Glory and disdain,
Godhead and mortality,
Ecstasy and pain.

Take me in thy wild embrace
Without weak reserve
Body dire and unveiled face;
Faint not, Life, nor swerve.

All thy bliss I would explore,
All thy tyranny.
Cruel like the lion's roar,
Sweet like springtide be.

Like a Titan I would take,
Like a God enjoy,
Like a man contend and make,
Revel like a boy.

More I will not ask of thee,
Nor my fate would choose;
King or conquered let me be,
Live or lose.

Even in rags I am a god;
Fallen, I am divine;
High I triumph when down-trod,
Long I live when slain.

Who was it that came to me in a boat made of dream-fire,
With his flame brow and his sun-gold body?
Melted was the silence into a sweet secret murmur,
"Do you come now? Is the heart's fire ready?"

Hidden in the recesses of the heart something shuddered,
It recalled all that the life's joy cherished,
Imaged the felicity it must leave lost forever,
And the boat passed and the gold god vanished.

Now within the hollowness of the world's breast inhabits -
For the love died and the old joy ended -
Void of a felicity that has fled, gone for ever,
And the gold god and the dream boat come not.

The leaf tips bend
under the weight of dew.
Fruits are ripening
in Earth's early morning.
Daffodils light up in the sun.
The curtain of cloud at the gateway
of the garden path begins to shift:
have pity for childhood,
the way of illusion.

Late at night,
the candle gutters.
In some distant desert,
a flower opens.
And somewhere else,
a cold aster
that never knew a cassava patch
or gardens of areca palms,
never knew the joy of life,
at that instant disappears-
man's eternal yearning.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
- slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hanh

One of our primary goals at Cedar Gallery is to provide a public forum for both unknown and established poets to showcase their works. We particularly encourage contributions from unpublished aspiring artists, but are happy to consider all submissions.

Please, send your contributions to: cedars.letters@live.nl

Kiss The Earth