Without Unity

The masters of old attained unity with the Tao. Heaven attained unity and became pure. The earth attained unity and found peace. The spirits attained unity so they could minister. The valleys attained unity that they might be full. Humanity attained unity that they might flourish. Their leaders attained unity that they might set the example. This is the power of unity.

Without unity, the sky becomes filthy. Without unity, the earth becomes unstable. Without unity, the spirits become unresponsive and disappear. Without unity, the valleys become dry as a desert. Without unity, human kind can't reproduce and becomes extinct. Without unity, our leaders become corrupt and fall.

The great view the small as their source, and the high takes the low as their foundation. Their greatest asset becomes their humility. They speak of themselves as orphans and widows, thus they truly seek humility. Do not shine like the precious gem, but be as dull as a common stone.

~tao te ching

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Don't Let The Moment Pass

This golden day will be mine
For every moment in time
If time should lose her way

A symphony in the night
Of stars that dance in the light
And music far away

They say that love is but a dance
Dont let the music fade away
Dont let the moment pass

Without reason or rhyme
The sweet bouquet of the wine
Will vanish in the air

The innocence of the rose
She leaves where she goes
For all the world to share

Some days when clouds are drifting by
I open my eyes and watch them go
And wonder where they fly

Some nights orion runs too fast
I look to the stars as if to say
Dont let the moment pass

But soon a golden age is past
Just when it seemed that miracles
Were not too much to ask

And though the world may turn too fast
If it should seem like paradise
Dont let the moment pass

~Alan Parsons

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When will there come a day, when the world will go away?

I'd like nothing more than to have a day free of the worldly constraints
These, seemingly all-pervasive, constraints bind us to this hell
How did our fore bearers allow us to take this course?
When will enough of us do what it takes to put an end to it once and for all?

I leave this question, often for weeks at a time, only to return again.
I return even more perplexed than before.
Will it ever just go away, even for just one day?

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A Meditation on the Mind of a Host

By Chou Tung (Snow Reid)

Happiest of all are the guests
Sorriest are the servants
Half happy half sorry is the host.

Chunk upon chunk of meat,
Goblet after goblet of wine,
sent tumbling down their gullets,
Exhilirating to death the guests,
Worrying to death the host,
And tiring to death the servants.

Talking and joking,
Shaking hands, exhausting words;
Time flows by swiftly.
Does the host do all this just to please his guests,
or could it be that …

He’s just indulging in another grand celebration
of his own loneliness?
Or perhaps this is only an exercise,
to test the strength and stamina
of the servants.
No blame in killing two birds with one stone.

No wonder people love parties:
Eating heavy food,
Speaking hollow words,
Smiling frozen grimaces;
Hearts cold,
Brains blank,
Each guest aiming at a different mark.

There’s meat, there’s wine,
and sweet desserts,
And every form of pleasure.
We have not come here in vain:
Engaging in brief rencounters,
While filling our bellies full.

Say "Hello", say "Good night",
"Great party, good food,
Hate to run,
but have to go …"

Leaving behind a pile of rotting bones,
dirty dishes, and stale crumbs,
And the scowls on the frowning faces
of the servants.

Chiang Mai, Thailand 1992

This work by Chou Tung (Snow Reid) was first published in Chinese in the Feb 23, 1992
issue of The World Daily News in Thailand; The above is a translation by Daniel Reid,
sub-titled as “A Meditation on the Mind of a Host”

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Running to Paradise

by William Butler Yeats

As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise;
And many a darling wit's grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play
While I must hurry upon my way,
For I am running to Paradise;
Yet never have I lit on a friend
To take my fancy like the wind
That nobody can buy or bind:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

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Timeless Poems from William Butler Yeats

After Long Silence

Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

All things can tempt Me

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman’s face, or worse—
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.

Broken Dreams

There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake - that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's putting on
Burdensome beauty - for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.

Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, "Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.'

Vague memories, nothing but memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.

You are more beautiful than any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always brimming lake
Where those What have obeyed the holy law
paddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed,
For old sake's sake.

The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

The Mother of God

The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

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Mind Waves

when our minds are filled with thoughts
it is like a pond filled with waves
the more waves fill the pond
the more difficult it is for the pond to be clear

thoughts cloud the mind as waves cloud water
they distract us from the awareness of the present moment
and cause us to confusedly go through life
never feeling our immediate connection to everything else

when we notice thoughts coming into our minds
it is a mistake to become emotional towards those thoughts
the emotions will bring about more thoughts
further clouding the mind they leave one oblivious to the present

the best manner in which to deal with this
is to allow the thoughts to subside without agitating the mind
if we take pause and allow the serene state to return
then we can return to the wisdom that arises with awareness

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