From a Poet

  The Abyss of Experience Sometimes living, or the life we undertake, is no more than a dream of the past.  One day we arise with some wonderful plan, work towards it, look at its many aspects, then realize it is not possible, and try to forget, but its momentum is still there.  How often has such an event, a moment of deep regret, or a moment of overwhelming joy, affected the way something in the future is reacted to?  We are in a bad mood and so everyone else must suffer; we are happy and everyone else smiles back.  Life is an ongoing series compiled one upon the other, interacting, falling away, creating new outcomes, but binding them all into a habituated pattern.  Yet there comes a moment when we really try to work out that wonderful plan, really try to experience it for all it is worth, but somehow we always come up short, or indeed approximate it with something we have already experienced.  The new path around the mountain is interspersed with memories of the old, however neithe

  The Last Remaining Tree Where does interest come from?  The infinity of choice is often so heavy that likes and dislikes are not concerned with well-being, but are the passing of the wind through the leaves of a tree.  Sometimes a leaf falls off, a branch breaks, or the tree is overturned itself, but the wind is still blowing.  There is much that comes through us, much that may rip us apart, or knock us over, but that is because the wind has never ceased to blow.  Everything wants to be uncovered, room must be made for new leaves to bloom, new branches to sprout, and new trees to grow; even a slight breeze may help the new sapling strengthen its roots and trunk.  But there is often a wonderful aura that remains around the tree no longer bothered by the wind.  Perhaps we do not need new trees, but the old ones to grow with the wisdom it takes to remain firm. Douglas Thornton

  There is often little time for reflection though the hours never cease to pile up.  Much is thought of, many things are remembered, but little is reflected upon.  There is a difference between thinking and reflecting; one of them presents a plan or an image, which is transformed according to feeling, or exterior phenomena that seeks an end, or a means to an end; the other is the transformation of thought without end, it simply looks, it watches the worry come and go, plans arise and finish.  When you step back from a wall, you can see how high it is, but when you are very close, you must grasp onto something because there is no way to see where you are.  So reflecting is a way to stand back and see how far the thought goes, while thinking holds to the thought as long as it wants.  Reflection shows that thoughts do not control you, while thinking always seeks a thought to control. Douglas Thornton

  Everything comes to light by circumstance, hateable or likeable only because of the atmosphere in which it appears.  The problem is most things are judged by circumstance; they are not seen for what they are, but what we think they are, and the bad luck of discriminating between whatever is imaginable in any given situation and our past conditioning is the conclusion to this.  We hear music and laughter at a distance and suddenly feel left out; we cannot go where we had planned and become morose; these are circumstance and condition coming into contact with the senses, that is all, but we make of it the meaning and direction of our lives thereafter.  Where is reality then?  Where is the place that is not affected by all this?  If we could stare all day at the branch of a tree with its leaves unfolding, we would never say they were opening, but if we look at it for only a moment day after day, we may see the change undeniably.  Circumstances change, the conditioned mind may see this c