While I was wandering the site after a day in the pub, I came across a post with some Carl's poetry from a couple of years ago, and I thought I might drop some of my own poetry here. I seem to have come out with a couple of poems in the spirit of Taoism in the past couple of months, so maybe you'd be interested to read them. Or maybe not, but here they are.

For every romantic rejection received
There’ll always be somebody watching, relieved
You’re not at the bottom, you’re not at the top
We live in the middle, and that’s where we stop.

Who is the one that your lover desires
But a friend who will keep you at arms’ length from fire?
Who is the one that desires your girl
But validity for all that you’ve done in this world?

Whenever you lose, someone else loses more
When you win, other’s riches still render you poor
The power, the money, the woman, the job:
Whoever has these has to fear being robbed.

Um... that's one. Hang on, there's another one in here somewhere...

Cross-legged beneath a shady tree
I’m like a skinny Buddha
I wait for my reward to come
And claim me as her lover

I wait, but do not try to bring
My goals about by force
Whatever’s coming to me
Will be coming in due course

So if you find romance or work
Or life untrustworthy
Put down your cares, take off your shoes
And sit beneath my tree.

Hi all
I have the odd moment of clarity where I can bang out a poem, I done this one while I was having my morning coffee looking out the back window,

I was sitting looking out the window at the winter scene, but there’s still life all around I can see a mired shades of green, then it came to me I saw,
Ch,ien the oak and k,un the sycamore and even little sun the apple tree
Encapsulating the tao, where one person sees bare lifeless branches,
I see achieving all through stillness, the tao of nature, waiting for that moment when there buds will bloom again, and they can be a truly beautiful tree
But beauty is fleeting and in the eye of the beholder
I learnt that as I got a little but older, beauty comes from deep within and to not be all we can be would be the ultimate sin

RD

Welcome okietaoist, Those are some nicely crafted photos on your 'meditations' link. Now just a few thoughts on your thoughts...

this is the ideal...yet how can it be reconciled with the times into which i was born,
and the life i feel is right for me to live? where is that fulcrum, that point of balance?
i yearn for that truly pagan, pastoral existence; my soul and being ache for that state
of simplicity and contentment. yet, the world's definitions of 'state', 'simplicity',
and 'contentment' all but abjure the divine precepts these words, at one time, described.

You speak to an interesting problem we thinking animals face. What real difference exists between "at one time" and now? Word meaning, "simplicity, contentment" or any other word, derive its 'true' meaning from the emotions we feel it conveys. In other words, word only mean what feeling we associate with them. "At one time" (like a billion years ago) and now can be the same, or a billion years apart. No wonder we say, That is why I know the benefit of resorting to no action. The teaching that uses no words, the benefit of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world.

A "truly pagan, pastoral existence" is in the eye of the beholder, not based on one's circumstances. The reason we are no longer living a simple existence is that we (humans) yearn for ever increasing comfort and security, unaware of the natural trade off that must follow.

I think Jesus was speaking to this trade off when he said, "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

We are the same animal we were 100,000 years ago, it is just our circumstance that are different. If you take your life's meaning from your circumstance, you will always feel out of sync with your "ideal". Mind you, that is all right; after all, this is how circumstances bring us to maturity.

Got ya! My point about the animal bit is not so much about the commonly recognized biology of it, rather about our self perception. I've found that really embracing and maintaining a gut level realization that I'm an animal makes all the other issues (esp. ideals) become more background noise. I've not heard that case made much, if at all, so that's my job. I'll admit though, I do go on and on though...