"What makes form adventurous is its unpredictable appetite
for particulars. The truly creative mind is always ready for the operations of
chance. It wants to sweep into the constellation of the artwork as much as it
can of the loose, floating matter that it encounters. How much accident can the
work incorporate? How much of the unconscious life can the mind dredge up from
its depths?" ~Stanley
*********************************
"Your
eyes are on your side, for you cannot see your eyes, and your eyes cannot see
themselves. Eyes only see things outside, objective things. If you reflect on
yourself, that self is not your true self any more. You cannot project yourself
as some objective thing to think about. The mind which is always on your side
is not just your mind, it is the universal mind, always the same, not different
from another’s mind. It is Zen mind. It is big, big mind. The mind is whatever
you see. Your true mind is always with whatever you see. Although you do not
know your own mind, it is there—at the very moment you see something, it is
there. This is very interesting. You mind is always with the things you
observe. So you see, this mind is at the same time everything." ~Shunryu Suzuki,
Zen’s Mind, Beginner’s Mind, p. 134
*********************************
208. If you change your mind, you are
free. Or you were.
From Vectors: Aphorisms &
Ten-Second Essays by James Richardson
*********************************
The Woman Who
Is Early Nin Andrews
The Woman Who Is Early is always at least one step ahead of time. She is always rushing and rushing. Where-ever she goes,
she is already there long before she arrives. Whatever she is
saying, she has already said it before the words leave her lips.
Whatever song she is singing she is already so sick of it, and she
wishes she could get it out of her mind. Whatever meal she is
preparing, she has eaten it before taking the first bite. Whatever
man she desires, she had made love to him a thousand times
before he ever undresses her. A man can never make love to her
the way he did once upon a time, before he made love to her. Of
course therapists tell her she should slow down and rest a spell.
Relax. She has heard those words long before she ever sees
therapists. Does she have to explain it to them again? How a
great wave is chasing her? It is rising above her head even as she
thinks of it. If she looks back, just once, it will wash over her.
She will instantly drown. Of course, she is right. That's why she
has already drowned.
*********************************
The Storm
Jennifer Moss
Where one mind stops, another begins.
Where cutlery shines on plates,
a voice lowers.
One length of forgiveness,
round and round like a child's game
in the dust.
When we leave we are replaced.
Shaky clouds in lightning,
my shadow alive on the floor.
Then the small passage for sleep.
How green and spidery the sky.
In its net, the dead bees of memory.
*********************************
"The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good
reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness;
the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God. The mind’s
sidekick, however, will settle for two eggs over easy.
The dear, stupid body is as easily satisfied as a
spaniel. And, incredibly, the simple spaniel can lure the brawling mind to its
dish. It is everlastingly funny that the proud, metaphysically ambitious,
clamoring mind will hush if you give it an egg.
Further: while the mind reels in deep space, while the
mind grieves or fears or exults, the workaday senses, in ignorance or idiocy,
like so many computer terminals printing out market prices while the world
blows, up, still transcribe their little data and transmit them to the
warehouse in the skull."
~Annie Dillard, in Teaching
a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, p. 99
