45
" Maybe someday I can find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but will lack the strength to lift it anymore. Then, I will think to empty the coin from the pot, but will lack the genius to carry out the said act. Later, I will be approached by someone who will ask me about the story of the pot of gold. I will attempt to explain the story to them in the best way that I can.
The person might then ask me, “How much of it was true?” and to them I shall respond with a question.
“How much do you have believed of it to be of truth and be not farce?”
They will ponder over what has been asked of them. They will solemnly look first to the ground, and then to the sky, seeking the divine answer to disarm, or perhaps the answer to their own question. After much time spent rehearsing the question and answer in their head, they will have finally reached the answer.
“Half—half of it I believe were true.” They will say to me with complete confidence, and then that confidence will subside assertively into a question. Feeling flustered and unsure of themselves, with their face representing melting wax, they will again look to me for an answer.
“Half of it was true then,” I will reply to them with my assertiveness.
Puzzled and dumbfounded, the person will ask me, “How was half of it true then?”
I will reply to this person in a sincere attempt to gain their confidence and instill wisdom in them.
“I cannot tell you what is right or wrong, only what I think is right or wrong. If you believe that half were true, then half were true. If you believe that all of it lies in truth, then all of it were divinely true. If you find that it is absurd and could not share any truth, then there be no truth in the matter. It is your perception that has brought you to your conclusion, not mine. For clearly, if you are thinking about what be true and what be not true, then I have done my job in giving you something to think about, but I cannot think or decide for you. "
― Phil Volatile , My Mind's Abyss
46
" During the Meiji era, the Japanese Zen master, Nan-in had a visitor from a respected university – a professor who wanted to learn about Zen.
Nan-in served the professor a pot of tea, but when the cupwas full, he continued pouring until the cup was overflowing. The startled professor watched in amazement until he could no longer restrain himself from intervening, “The cup is full and no more will go in. You’re making a mess!” “Like this cup,” Nan-insaid, “You are full of your own opinions, artificial concepts and negative speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Like the learned professor who wanted to understand spirituality, you too must empty your cup and have an open mind and heart. "
― Christopher Dines , Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
48
" He looks forlornly ahead of him, gazing at the road but looking at nothing in particular. The whole world is one big giant ball of light to him, and he feels like a bug inside it, waiting to be squashed. He feels like there is no sense of purpose, no direction. There is nothing waiting for him at the end of the rainbow. No pot of gold for all the pain he is feeling now, or the pain he has felt before. He just feels empty and lost, as if he is looking for something that can never be found. He feels lost that he can’t explain it to anyone and that no one will understand. He feels left out, standing alone, waiting endlessly for a ray of hope which never comes. He has suffered through this before, lurking in the shadows of his own despair, fighting for his life and losing the battle. But nothing ever makes this pain go away. Or the fear. He doesn’t fear what people fear. Not the loss of life or riches—Roman fears losing himself in this swamp called existence. He fears becoming the person he doesn’t want to become, and most of all, he fears himself. Fears his own potential to destroy and destruct. To obliterate. To suffocate his own life. He fears all that and he is afraid no one will ever know what his heart aches for, or how bad he has it. At times he feels the urge to tell this to someone, but other times he just enjoys being silent, watching on like a passerby at his own life, an observer rather than someone who’s actually living it. "
58
" The Geranium
When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine -
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)
The things she endured!-
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.
Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me-
And that was scary-
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely. "
― Theodore Roethke , Selected Poems
60
" She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber . . . forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers. . . . But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter.Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly l "