In my youth I did my time
Doing strict religious discipline
A whole decade dedicated to mindfulness
And right livelihood.
And in the several decades since I’ve done
All that on and off again, from time to time.
But now my discipline is different
It’s the discipline of do-nothing
The wu wei of effortless action
More like mindlessness
Than effortful mindfulness.
What does it involve? Nothing!
Too simple you say,
And that’s the point exactly!
Like a cloud drifting through an open sky
Neither born nor dying
Simply manifesting
Into something
From nothing.
(9/16/26)
You want to know what eternity is?
It’s just another moment of hope
you might come around the next corner,
or out of the next doorway I approach.
Or, better yet, it’s waking up beside you
on some distant remembered morning
life and the universe let me relive.
Eternity, in short, my love, is the assurance
you give to every rising day that somewhere
you live and breathe and greet the morning
with the promise of your smile.
You already gave me everything
I could ask of a thousand lifetimes
ago where and when all I could see
would come from the vision of your
smile your eyes your hair your face you
too divine to be sought too astonishing
to imagine too wonderful for a million
million effortful, striving words.
Christopher M. Swan, “Song of Susan,” 2008
The utter simplicity of nondoing…
What’s happening is so obvious,
yet the way of seeing so subtle,
it’s easy to miss and disregard.
If this is enlightened view and action
it is indeed too simple to believe,
and too immediate to satisfy
a seeking, craving, effortful mind.
Each thought a bubble
burbling up from a natural spring.
Who even cares what they are about!
Each moment, each babbling thought, unbidden arises and passes on its own, effortlessly,
and the I watching it,
not even the I who thought it; both
just a label for a “mine” that is an illusion.
Even when I’m not aware of it
there is awareness.
“I was blind all the time I was learning to see.”
Indeed.
(2/7/22)
My first thought, Haiku!
I kept writing twenty one
Feverous efforts
Seventeen syllable try
Instead of six eight six or
Seven seven.seven more
If you laugh at anger and allow some pride,
You may not be quite the same person inside;
If you ignore a little greed, just to yourself,
And inspect sloth in worship as an act of self,
You’ll become lazy more often than you like,
Expecting no consequences, no laborious hike,
Back to work, concern and effortful interest,
Where you do your utmost to do your best.
If you pass over that extra chocolate drop,
And let your greed compensate for your flop,
To account for the sadness in your life and day,
Then you’ll only put on weight to dribble away;
If you shine on gluttonous outbursts as good,
You’ll only validate for your happiness, food,
Which can’t love you or elevate you into meaning,
Because it’s got no warmth, presence or feeling.
And if you have sex with too many friends, people,
You’ll never see them as sensitive and capable,
You’ll never relate to them as you could or should,
And sex will become purely physical, crude,
Which will make you jealous of others’ sex lives,
Envious of their relationships, hideouts and dives,
And anger will devour your mind to place and stake,
Everybody else as wrong, oh for goodness sake!
Go there now,
Way out, effortful,
Take much time.
unabashed analyzation
overturned rocks
and constant contemplations
an effortful acceptance
spurned out of desperation
gathers speed now flying
taking, ticking, tocking
the past once regretted
incomplete when forgotten
ambitious non-removal
ticking now, now tocking
can through such a fog
of dense perplexity
a life be shaken loose
can something take me
tick me, tock me
Schackled the child cast in shame
by a father's disapproval.
Clipped the fledgling un-nuzzled
by an indifferent mother.
Brave the neglected one and
miraculous her recovery
climbing with effortful feet
the mountain to sun and stars.
©Kathryn McLoughlin Collins
December 5, 2012
Dame’s Rockets grow atop her grave:
Pinks, whites and purples flourish here
in this cemetery enclave
where no one has visit in years.
Her oblique, weatherworn headstone
stands aside a nearby roadside
hidden amid weeds, unbeknown
to motorist who pass where she lies.
An effortful deciphering
failed to clarify her birth year
Born April first [obscured] in spring
Died forgotten this much is clear
except for these fragrant bouquets
that perfume above her grave today.
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