Letting Things Speak for Themselves

Just signing on to inform the masses that I'm too tired to grace cyber space with witty anecdotes that make up my days. Instead I would like to share a poem. It's from a small pamphlet like book called Bhakti, Santi: Love, Peace, a book of meditations edited by Jacob Trapp. The bottom left corner of the cover states PRICE 75cents. There is an inscription inside the cover addressed to my grandmother dated June 1974:

Dear Mrs. Pontbriand,
There are only a few with
whom the deeper things
can easily be shared.
Thinking of you.

I'm not going to share the name of the man who presented this little treasure, but here is one entry I felt was appropriate for today.

Let Things Speak for Themselves

Consider the lilies,
they neither toil nor spin;
yet Solomon's bride in all her glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

The famous silence of the Buddha:
Before a waiting, expectant congregaion of monks
he came and stood before them silently
holding up a flower for them to contemplate.

The sage Teu-tzu one day pointed to a stone
lying near the temple gate, and remarked,
"therein reside all the Buddhas
of the past, the present, and the future."

"Tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
sermons in stones. . . . ."
"An old pine tree preaches wisdom,
and a wild bird is crying out truth."

The flower is.
Beauty in not its own excuse for being;
it needs none.

J. T.