The wind blows hard outside the window tonight.
Illusion and enlightenment depend on each other,Someone says someone close to them has died and they have lost interest in living. I hear that.
Principle and actuality are ultimately the same
All day long, sutras without words,
Through the night, Zen without sitting.
Warblers sing in the willow grove
By the river,
A village dog barks at the moon.
I have no one to share my feelings
So I just write what is in my heart.
- Ryokan
No man is an islandWe die when someone close dies. Most people pretend it's not so. But it is.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
(Poem by John Donne)
How do we go on once we realize we, too, have died?
There's the mystery!
Tell me when you find out.
And I'll share it with this person.
Who will, I'm sure, be grateful to know.