Under God’s Sky, A HIDDEN ANSWER & MORE ~ FROM THOMAS MERTON

 

North Saskatchewan River heading up to the Artic

 

 

Keep your eyes clean and your ears quiet and your mind serene.

Breathe God’s air.   Work, if you can, under God’s sky.

 

Thomas Merton  ~ New Seeds of Contemplation

 

 

Eastern Sierra Nevada’s in fall glory

 

 

Many of the Zen stories, which are almost always incomprehensible in rational terms, are simply the ringing of an alarm clock, and the reaction of the sleeper.

Usually the misguided sleeper makes a response which in effect turns off the alarm clock, so he (or she) can go back to sleep. Sometimes he or she jumps out of bed with a shout of astonishment that it is so late.

Sometimes he or she just sleeps and does not hear the alarm at all.

 

from ~ Zen and the Birds of Appetite

 

 

 

Ronnings Garden and San Josef Bay on Northern Vancouver Island

 

 

Reading Chuang Tzu, I wonder seriously if the wisest answer (on the human level, apart from the answer of faith) is not beyond ethics and politics. It is a hidden answer, it defies analysis and cannot be embodied in a program.  Ethics and politics, of course, but only in passing, only as a night’s lodging.

There is a time for action, a time for commitment, but never total involvement in the intricacies of the movement. There is a moment of innocence and kairos, when action makes a great deal of sense. But who can recognize such moments? Not he (or she) who is debauched of a sense of programs.

And when all action has become absurd, shall one continue to act simply because once, a long time ago, it made a great deal of sense? As if one were always getting somewhere.

There is a time to listen, in the active life as everywhere else, and the better part of action is waiting, not knowing what next, and not having a glib answer.

 

from ~ Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

 

 

 

Ronnings fall colour and reaching to the clear light

 

 

But I do have a past to break with, an accumulation of inertia, waste, wrong, foolishness, rot, junk, a great need of clarification of mindfulness, or rather of no mind  – a return to genuine practice, right effort, need to push on to the great doubt. Need for the Spirit.

 

Hang on to the clear light!

 

~ from Woods, Shore, Desert

 

all quotes by Thomas Merton

 

                                  Clouds, trees and ocean at Oak Bay on Southern Vancouver Island

 

photos by Bruce –  peace

 

~

Tags: conjectures of a guilty bystander, new seeds of contemplation, ronnings garden, san josef bay

• November 3, 2019
• ecology, Landscapes, Photography, Spirituality, thomas merton, Wilderness
• 12 Comments