Yoga Heart

Lines on the Six Perfections

Leza Lowitz, Akiko Tanimoto

• Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781933330938
• eBook ISBN: 9781611725124
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Poésie américaine

Poems designed to inspire the journey toward awareness, interconnectedness, and bliss.

These sixty poems on the Buddha's six "perfections, " or qualities for a meaningful life—generosity, kindness, patience, joy, stillness, wisdom—were written over years of yoga and meditation practice, inspired by Tibetan Heart Yoga, nature, Buddhism, Osho, Tantra, ancient Japanese and Chinese poetry, Rumi, Kabir, haiku, love, and life.

They seek to capture a journey from the physical body to the subtle body to the light body, until the heart bursts open into the beautiful radiance of divine energy in the world.

Kshanti Paramita

PATIENCE

What Does It Mean to Be Zen?

To do nothing?

Think nothing?

Be nothing?

Impossible.

To be Zen

is just to be yourself—

not name nor job nor history,

not likes nor dislikes,

thought or no-thought,

desire or despair.

But what is self?

Where does self reside?

(Hint: In what we do for others.)

Most difficult of all

is to meet yourself

where you are,

and abide there

completely

just as you are

accepting whatever arises

from moment to moment.

All else happens on its own accord.

Monkeymind Market

Like the best convenience store in the world,

the mind is always open.

Its job is to work non-stop,

offering a thought here,

a memory there,

attempting to sway you with a new plan

at the check-out counter,

an impulse buy you can’t refuse.

Some purchase everything in sight,

desperate for satisfaction.

Some pick up each item,

turn it over endlessly

only to put it back down.

Some look for the best quality,

the limited edition,

others only for a bargain.

Some try to smash the shelves,

sending the products

tumbling to the ground.

So don’t waste any more time!

Sort through the destruction

looking for fragments.

Just taking stock,

putting each thing in its place,

observing, then finally

discovering

the empty spaces

between aisles,

such fertile ground

to plant

all those

fragrant,

rich seeds.

Speak to Me

They say the Buddha’s first words

after enlightenment

were a poem.

Entering the hermitage,

the poet travels deep into

the guest-house of the body.

Though the walls are thin

the floors are bare

the ceiling cracked

and the rain pours through,

here human nature

entwines with nature.

Speak gently.

Do not judge others harshly

lest you yourself be judged.

Choose your words wisely.

Hold your tongue when angry.

Just so, there’s a circle in the ceiling

for viewing the moon,

a reflecting pool

of the sphere of the heart

empty and full.

What you say about others

returns in what is said about you.

The moon on the water,

becomes one with the water,

past nesting in future,

no need for more words.

Teabowl Zen

—for Japan, after the quake

Does beauty arise

from ash and ruin,

like the glaze of the teabowl

born from the fire?

You either build

or you destroy.

Turn toward the pain.

Let it sear into you.

Remember the harm

you have done to the earth.

Vow to repay the earth

for its kindness.

These scars will be

our path to compassion,

our mistakes

the road to a peaceful future

more valuable

than the purest gold.

On Modesty

He called himself the farmer of Katsushika,

and thirty other names, moving ninety-three times,

following the movement of seas, waterfalls, islands, the moon.

His father was a mirror polisher for the Shogun.

He captured Mt. Fuji from every perspective,

his eye like a fox, like a camera.

He wanted to live to ninety, but after making thirty thousand prints,

Hokusai died at eighty-nine, saying:

If heaven gives me even five more years, I shall

surely become a great artist.

Simplicity

Insight is the gift

of seeing reality as it is.

Not as it was,

nor as we wish it to be

but just this,

just this,

just this.

Go ahead and complicate things

if you like.

When you figu...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Off the Mat, Into the World
• Dana Paramita: Giving
• Shila Paramita: Kindness
• Kshanti Paramita: Patience
• Virya Paramita: Joyful Effort
• Dhyana Paramita: Stillness
• Prajna Paramita: Wisdom
• Endnotes
• Bibliography