"I am here for you."
Or is it "with you?"
This is a realization and a koan worth contemplating.
...Is what names are.
My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htmAfterwards we read a few poems by Naneo Sakaki (1923-2008)
In The Next Life I Will BeDeano thought that if everything is itself, then the dead will also share in awakening whenever anyone awakens. The movement, he thought, is the movement of what we call God between us.
Wiping the windowpanes of my humble shack,
a dirty dust cloth in my hand,
endless blue sky over my head.
At the forest edge
where narcissus are already in all their glory,
where wild boars bite off various trees' roots every so often,
where I stand, piss, and murmur.
In the next life I will be a dust cloth
lapis lazuli colored.
As a dust cloth, making myself dirty
I clean up windowpanes, kitchens and toilets,
and I also wipe out discrimination and wars.
If ever the world really exists
I start polishing it from my tiny corner.
If ever eternity really exists
I make it brilliant at every moment.
The more I work, the more I become
pure lapis lazuli color
just like today's sky.
Ten days after winter solstice
the mother sun is shining bright.
All of a sudden, a gust of north wind
blows the dead leaves from the trees.
Look, something coming down!
With our luminous star behind
red wings flutter.
What is that? Hawk? Flying goblin? UFO?
Wow! On the palm of my hand
I catch the monster -
a withered red leaf of oak.
Living in the flower garden of the sun's red corona
biting off the rainbow's roots forever
someone murmurs
In the next life I will be....
Jan 2, 1998/ Izu Peninsula, Japan
Nanao Sakaki
Obituaries, New York Times:
- Eydie Gorme, Voice of Sophisticated Pop, Dies at 84
- William P. Clark, Influential Adviser in Reagan White House, is Dead at 81
It suggests to me that I will do the same.
- John Reilly, 74, a Champion of Documentary, Dies
The Gate of Not-OkayPerfect.
- Merle Kodo Boyd, "Okay As It Is, Okay As You Are." Tricycle
The only thing that can make us uncomfortable with being alone is not liking who we are. That’s what we do when we face the wall: we face who we are. Being okay with however that arises is the most compassion and the most honesty you can ever offer yourself—to just accept yourself as you are. Even if you don’t like it, that’s okay, because not-okay is always a practice gate. We can always include what we don’t like in ourselves. But letting go of worrying about having to become perfect: that’s a gift that we give to ourselves.
This new portrait of the Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, was taken with the Subaru Telescope's new high-resolution imaging camera, the Hyper-Suprime Cam (HSC).
Credit: HSC Project/NAOJ. http://www.space.com/22177-andromeda-galaxy-photo-hsc.html
And yet...it is all as close and intimate to us as the coffee beans dancing in grinder, person sitting beside you, green grass underfoot, sunshine on hand. As near as god, as near as truth, as near as mere simple 'hello, good morning' to visitors in wohnkuche. We are terribly close to and intimate with all of existence all of Being all of raisin English muffins, organic, this holy instant.
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the Andromeda constellation. Also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, it is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Wikipedia Distance to Earth: 2,538,000 light years, Age: 9 billion years, Stars: 1 trillion Constellation: Andromeda, Apparent mass: ~1,230 billion M☉ Coordinates: RA 0h 42m 44s | Dec 41° 16.152' |
Milky Way Galaxy, NASA |