When my mind churns up old thoughts that interrupt the joy I feel walking in the woods, I say to my mind, "Tell me something I haven't heard before."
My mind becomes quiet. It has nothing new to say. The sounds all around me become exquisitely clear.
This works under all circumstances (-:
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Something made me wonder if I had posted something like this before, and I found this poem I wrote nearly 20 years ago after a group sitting meditation in a local meditation hall and posted here in 2015.
POEM ABOUT SOMEONE AND SOMETHING NEW
Someone breathing
Someone not alone
Someone walking lonely paths
Someone leaving lonely shelters
Someone finding a lonely ocean
Someone feeling Something New
Thousands of tiny hearts
Within the left side of Someone
Someone's right side perfectly empty
Someone's emptiness graceful as sky
Thousands of tiny hearts
Filling half the emptiness
Something loving the emptiness
Emptiness loving Something
Yes and No becoming simple again
Something New becoming emptiness
Emptiness becoming Something New
Something New and emptiness finding Someone
Someone finding the seasons of a lonely path
Someone finding shelter from a lonely storm
Someone finding a lonely ocean
With Someone sleeping, there was still Something New
Still the emptiness, still a path,
Still a shelter, still an ocean.
And Someone waking up
Feeling sacred hearts everywhere
On paths in and out of time
In shelters from a lonely storm
By the lonely and beloved ocean
Hearts bearing sacred cushions
Of loneliness, emptiness,
And Something New.
