resting mind.
quiet after storm? calm before tempest?

Coming empty-handed,
going empty-handed –
that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud
which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud
which disappears.
The floating cloud itself
Originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going,
are also like that.
But there is one thing
which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear,
not depending on life and death.

Then what is the one
pure and clear thing?

~ancient Zen poem

" madness is what i'll talk to you about - madness burdened with memories and with eyes like everyone else's, though in my story the eyes are like those of a smiling child trembling with fear.

you'll ask: is a madman who knows he's mad really mad? or: in a mad world, isn't the madman who is aware of his madness the only sane person?....if you had to describe a madman, how would you portray him?...

....how can we talk about madness except by using the specific language of those who carry it within themselves? what if i told you that within each of us, whether in good health or bad, there is a hidden zone, a secret region that opens out onto madness? one misstep, one unfortunate blow of fate, is enough to make us slip or flounder with no hope of ever rising up again.

..."

elie wiesel "a mad desire to dance", tr. by catherine temerson ("un desir fou de danser")

as i listened to an excellent lecture, in a discussion on anger tree, i thought that I would not list the fruits of the tree as all the negative feelings. personally, when listening to an angry person, even if this person is directing his or her anger at me particularly, i feel compassion, along with other feelings [mentioned by the participants of the workshop]. just wanted to add, that compassion is one of the valued, unusual, under-appreciated responses to anger.

When people speak badly about you, you should respond in this way: Keep a steady heart and do not reply with harsh words. Practice letting go of resentment, and accept that another's hostility is the spur to your understanding. Be kind, adopt a generous standpoint, treat your enemy as a friend, and suffuse your world with affectionate thoughts, far-reaching and widespread, limitless and free from hate.

Buddha

Yesterday - Charles Aznavour

Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame

The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned I always built, alas
On weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away

Yesterday when I was young
So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung
So many wayward pleasures layed in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see

I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall concerned itself with me
And nothing else at all

Yesterday the moon was blue

And every crazy day brought something new to do
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play

There are so many songs in me that won't be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay
For Yesterday When I was young...

"He was by divine choice only a poet and often unhappy but with him one had the feeling that he was catching every minute as it flew and turning it upside down to expose its happy side."

Lawrence Durrell "Alexandria Quartet. Justine"