Don't struggle, be supple

know your limits, be humble

you succeed in bending

without any fighting

so passive is water

when it strikes--everything it does conquer

You can walk away  

  it's not too late

  lest this friendship

   you later regret

Before I can reach out to others

I must be able to reach within me

the foundation must precede the building

only this will make for my credulity

Simplify, simplify, simplify

don't take life or yourself too seriously

you don't need wisdom to acquire happiness

trust yourself and believe the universe is not against you

you need people--be kind to all

cultivate love, compassion, humility, contentment and gratitude

accept life has joy and also sorrow

embrace all things noble and beautiful

embrace humour and live in the moment

The past is a dream
memories are carried in the river
ah, love where are you?
why do you still wander?

Soon night will set in
my heart loneliness will cover
by the water I stand in reverie lost
I am the unrequited lover.

We should be light and empty.

Isn't death so much relief in its nothingness?

Because I love life, death to me is only a metaphor

......but I am into the moment and don't think whether I am happy or not--- happiness is but a word-- meaning is found in my engagement with what's required of me by the moment.  I enjoy doing 'my thing', in my silence, unnoticed---it's just me in deepest absorption--time I forget, even my self.

If I have applied my best, in honesty and earnestly,  perhaps I would realise that state but I don't go around seeking the elusive happiness

The heart is woodland

deepest mysteries it holds

it sings and it weeps

It would be a lie
if I were to promise
what I can't give-

would that be love
or but a sham
a blemished gift?

My words would never fit--
but none of us does any wrong
neither do we need to forgive-

cast in fate's unyielding stone
are these words: ' Love is illusive-
remember as long as you live'.

In meditation

my being is anchored

upon emptiness

which contains all that is needed

It's most worrying

when words begin

to betray or distort

the mind's intended meaning

I've slept too long

      no more the slumber

      life's next song

      is springing to my ear--



      beauty will never do any wrong

      as bouquets of wonder she sets to gather

      with love and rejoicing in music's throng

      life doesn't die--it will live forever

About others we can sometimes be curious

but we should never be life-detectives -that's odious!

I wondered first as a child

I next wondered when I came to my youth

I wondered further in my middle-age

life was with me but it didn't often soothe



and now in my dying days

I wonder why I should have wondered

should have left behind the rude lacuna--

much of life borders upon the absurd

The doctor knows his medicine

but the heart he can't heal

life is hardly about reason

infinitely more about how to feel.

I am not out (truthfully)

for the trophy

that would indeed be

a ****** part of me

Do not seek in me

your image of what I am

I have flaws too many

for me to deny would be a sham-



come then, if me you can accept

come of your own free will, I should not implore

such that we would neither have cause to regret

and will cherish our affection more, much, much more

Do you remember
do you remember
that autumn day
when we first met
faraway by the gentle lake?

still was the water
silent were the trees
to me was your whisper:
I'll not forget
today's tender splendour
stay, oh stay
it's not sunset yet...

Now all alone
the lake is a reminder
of the day you've chosen
not to remember

yet I look
at the silent water
and your face
still does appear---

I'll walk away
and learn
not to remember

I go to a quiet and secluded corner every day-
I need the calm space to renew myself:

I walk out of myself.
I forget time.
I dream and imagine.
I think I'm with the clouds.
I hear the rustling leaves.
I feel the breezes drifting by.
I am still.
I want to be empty.

In the silent peace
my weariness fades away.

This is my 'prayer'
my blissful hour
where I truly belong.

The cul-de-sac indeed taught me

much more than the wide-open thoroughfare

I'm infinitely grateful for the experience

that I acquired when I was there

Night is loathed to speak

secrets it has too many

it will share with none

Some say life has meaning

others say there's none

I hardly know anything

I will just do what gives me fun

At the last droplets of time

I would still try to smile

a passer-by, a sojourner

who has stayed for just a while.



At the last droplets of time

to me the past would whisper:

we met once before

after this, never again--never.



At the last droplets of time

beauty, love, joy, sorrow would bid me good-bye

but tears I would not shed nor my life regret

at the hour of sweet surrender It's a good time to die.



At the last droplets of time

from the distant hill a song shall drift to me

soft, gentle, rapturous, tender- my heart shall rest

peacefully and I'll readily embrace the great mystery.

O world, o world,
O world so sad*
yet I will partake
of your sorrow
wherever I am
wherever I go
on my very skin
and soul
you hold to
and grow-

when my life's over
I will come to know
life is an illusion
a mere shadow
presaging
a path I must follow
leading to the Grand Unknown
the end of every suffering
and sorrow-

the mystery
will then be lifted
light will show

I will be there-
I am sure

So often

all the light outside

is blotted out

by the heart's darkness inside

........but even courage wavers

love is sometimes fearful of its own shadows

        the heart lives in doubt of its purity

this is the very tragedy of humanity

Before you can become

     you'd need to embrace

     and live within the Calm-



    reason has no answer

    the heart tends to wander

    without the Stillness, you'd falter-



    the self and desires must die

    nothingness is the door to bliss

    we are each but a shadow that passes by

We are diminished never

by our any mistake

each does abundantly deliver

a valuable lesson for our take

The past   etched in time's memory

engraved in my mind-scape  

     faces     places

colours.   sounds    smells.   moments



undercurrents of emotions

of feelings

of images

glimpses of joy  

    of sorrow

of laughter

of tears

of love

of tenderness

of resolutions

of doubts

of regrets

of remorse

of loneliness

of what had been

  or could have been

everything had evaporated like dreams



but all seems so dim now     neural debris  

weakening dendrites

the past is but shadows.      an illusion

  a shadow-play  



the essence was then --

most memories have vanished or faded

at the present hour

the past      what are its uses  ?

what are its abuses ?



time measures all          swallows all  



it takes no sides         neither as a friend or foe



the past  I was  

the present I am

the future I don't know

...but don't chide me

   for choosing to be alone

   amidst life's cacophony

   I risk losing my own-



  none shall rob my liberty

  in solitude, seeds of joy I've sown

  closer to understanding life's mystery

  all my doubts and sorrows are gone

I will join you

in laughter

the sky is blue

beautiful is the weather-



lend me your hand

we will walk together

through life's smiling land

in love, joy and wonder

My shut-up hours

2 to 4 pm

sitting in my garden

being just what I am

Life is neither 'no' or 'yes'
most parts are just jest

Life is story-telling

but our good parts we exaggerate

oblivious to our bad

fiction we cleverly create

Death can wait

life is beckoning

I must celebrate

For several thousand miles
we have travelled together
in the finest and roughest of days
we never doubted each other--

but now you have changed you mind
and a new path you want me to follow
that's not what my heart will consent to
we must part, much to our sorrow

Don't break

create instead

Trust, by all means

but wisely--

many lives have been ruined

by trusting implicitly

A dream within a dream, beyond the fondest dream

setting sun sheds its fading light on the silent stream

a gentle mist hovers over the silent trees

how calmly drifts the evening breeze



for my love my heart is waiting

my dream she will soon be fulfilling

What is false?

what is true?

what law, what clause?

is someone misleading me and you?

Dear Jeff,

I am a Zen person---I force nothing on myself---
it's the opposite, I aim at being empty---
in that emptiness, I am set free-
what is and what I am merge in oneness--
the doubts disperse and clarity, calmness and joy flood my heart.

In such a moment,  I become the 'richest' person in the world

I can't understand

every single part of me

I'm happy

to allow them just to be

My heart is forest

it hides deepest mystery

am I in a dream

Life, first, the engagement

at the end, the dislodgement

Not wanting

is the one-thing

of my heart's desiring

If me you by chance

at some corner of earth should find

just think of me as someone like you

what I am you need not try to define

Life is general

   the particular is self

Life is never another land

it's at the palm of your hand

Haiku is impressionistic music in words

If redemption

I were to seek

it's from my own within

not from other voices that speak