Guilt and Honour

Attacks on my honour
Skeletons dug up and dressed in guilt
Light bent and perspective smudged
By the answer they want to see
Shall I argue, point out right from wrong
Oppose passion with passion
And with the sharpness of my sword
Cut them down to size?
Or just smile and say
You have all the answers and I none
Or let silence do my work
Let the judgers be judged in turn
Minds that cannot rest
Until they think they have won
Then more battles they must find
Enjoy it! That endless toil, I think
Then catch the same thought in myself
And smile; we’re all the same
Inside

The Winner

How I hate the winner
Favoured in his master’s eye
One more right answer
Is all that divides
Futures already written
But give me a sword
And I’ll write it for myself
With the blood of these fools

Are we rational?

Are human beings rational or irrational?

People certainly act as if they think they are rational, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Why is this?

The answer perhaps, has something to do with thought. We use thought to come to conclusions about what is true, but fail to realize that outside of a laboratory these thought-made-truths are not reliable. Only when all things are controlled can we say anything with certainty, thus the scientist is rational in his work but irrational in his personal life. Rationality is like a finely weighted scale – very difficult to sustain in a turbulent world.

Each assumption we make through thought leads to error, for no matter how knowledgeable we are, there is always a limit to our experience. Thus we always look to the mistakes of the young, but miss the ones we are making now. Or, in our brilliance, introduce a new invention, only to find out later it has many drawbacks or unintended consequences on the environment. There is always a lag, or a remainder left over by the action of our thought, an error we are constantly trying to eliminate, but never succeeding, because we do not realize there is more to discover, and because we are impatient.

Only by becoming aware of our thoughts, and in coming to terms with their limitations can we possibly advance, but who now is willing to dethrone intellect and put simple awareness in its place?

Forever Poor

Enjoying life involves both engagement and detachment
To see the trees I look at the sky
To see the flowers I look at the trees
And to see myself forget myself
It is this dual focus that makes wisdom possible
And helps us to find meaning in any situation

Ask yourself this:
If you cannot find meaning in any situation
Any happy or horrible circumstance of life
Then how can you find meaning in anything at all?
For if our happiness is dependant on outcome
We are forever poor

The Optimist

An optimist does not lie to himself
about the true nature of the world,
Picking a good grain from a bad field,
He finds the optimum path
Making the best of whatever is.

Live for…

When we have so much to live by,
Why do we have so little to live for?

Life

One should not expect anything from life, but instead ask:
what does life expect of me?

Poetry

Poetry is like psychoanalysing yourself,
You don’t always want to share what comes out,
But you can’t write as well if you fake it.

Profound

When we touch the profound,
when insight shows us the inner world
laid out as plain as day,
all is at our feet.
But the day after, how to find our way back?
When thoughts steal the place of insight with recorded memory,
skilled yes, we have learned,
but bereft of insight,
which moves ever onward
like a star pointing to the heavens,
we must do what we did before,
to find it again -
and then again,
it will be memory.

Deep Time

Deep time, still time, silent time.
Where the echo of our lives
beats a distant drum,
barely heard now, over the drip, drip,
sigh of wind and steady rhythm of the earth.
Here I’m home and here I’m found.
Never before have I known the joy
of silent mind, enclosing all,
and only here, but it’s ever here,
Where I’m home and where I’m found.