Livin Your Best Life

Han-Shan/Cold Mountain wrote:Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: There’s no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn’t melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog
How did I make it?
My heart’s not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You’d get it and be right here.

Han-Shan/Cold Mountain wrote:“If there’s something good, delight!
Seize the moment while it flies!
Though life can last a hundred years,
Who’s seen their thirty thousand days?
Just an instant then you’re gone.
Why sit whining over things?
When you’ve read the Classics through,
You’ll know quite enough of death.”

“Should you look for a parable of life and death
Ice and water are the true comparisons.
Water binds and turns into ice;
Ice melts and again becomes water.
Whatever has died will certainly be born,
Whatever has come to life must die.
Ice and water do each other no harm;
Life and death too are both good."

Han-Shan/Cold Mountain wrote:If I hide out at Cold Mountain
Living off mountain plants and berries –
All my lifetime, why worry?
One follows his karma through.
Days and months slip by like water,
Time is like sparks knocked off flint.
Go ahead and let the world change –
I’m happy to sit among these cliffs.

Dylan Thomas wrote:Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wallace Stevens wrote:The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Han-Shan/Cold Mountain wrote:In a tangle of cliffs I chose a place –
Bird-paths, but no trails for men.
What’s beyond the yard?
White clouds clinging to vague rocks.
Now I’ve lived here – how many years –
Again and again, spring and winter pass.
Go tell families with silverware and cars
“What’s the use of all that noise and money?”

Big Bunny Love wrote:“cremation”

so I cremated

my dad yesterday

it was a good day

Han-Shan/Cold Mountain wrote:Clambering up the Cold Mountain Path,
The Cold Mountain Trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide cree, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there’s been no rain.
The pine sings, but there’s no wind.
Who can leap the world’s ties
and sit with me among the white clouds?

Mary Oliver wrote:”The Summer Day”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Emerson wrote:Excerpt from Emerson’s “Nature”:

“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says,—he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Almost I fear to think how glad I am. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”

The story of Siddhartha (who later became known as the Buddha) meeting Mara is a significant part of Buddhist tradition, particularly in the context of Siddhartha's quest for enlightenment.

Siddhartha Gautama was a prince who renounced worldly pleasures and comforts to seek enlightenment and understand the nature of suffering. After years of ascetic practices and learning under various teachers, he realized that neither extreme asceticism nor indulgence in worldly pleasures would lead to true knowledge. He chose the Middle Way, which avoids both extremes, and sat under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India, vowing not to rise until he had found the truth.

As Siddhartha meditated deeply and approached enlightenment, Mara, the demon representing delusions, desires, and the fear of death (also considered as the personification of one's own ego, attachments, and mental obstacles), appeared to thwart his efforts. Mara was afraid of losing his power if Siddhartha attained enlightenment and became free from the cycle of birth and death.

Mara attacked Siddhartha with armies of monsters and frightening visions, trying to instill fear and doubt. He used three main tactics: the armies representing fear, the visions of his daughters representing desire, and the challenge of entitlement to the seat of enlightenment. Each time, Siddhartha remained unmoved, his equanimity undisturbed by fear or desire.

When Mara challenged Siddhartha's right to become enlightened by asking who would testify for him, Siddhartha touched the earth with his right hand, calling the Earth itself as his witness. This gesture, known as the "Earth-touching mudra," symbolized Siddhartha's deep connection and harmony with the world and the truth of his spiritual journey. The Earth responded, affirming his right to enlightenment. Defeated, Mara disappeared, and Siddhartha achieved full enlightenment, becoming the Buddha.

The encounter with Mara represents the inner struggle that one must overcome to achieve spiritual awakening. It symbolizes the challenges faced on the path to enlightenment, including overcoming fear, desire, and ego, and illustrates the power of wisdom, determination, and compassion.