A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote encapsulates the essence of Zen philosophy, emphasizing the transient nature of life, the interconnectedness of all things, and the importance of mindfulness.
In this quote, Jane Hirshfield distills key tenets of Zen philosophy into three core principles: the inevitability of change, the interconnectedness of all existence, and the necessity for mindfulness. It suggests that by acknowledging and embracing the transient nature of reality, recognizing how everything impacts one another, and being fully present, we can cultivate a deeper understanding of life and a more profound sense of peace.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a meditation session, this quote can be shared to inspire mindfulness and reflection.
More from Jane Hirshfield
All quotes →What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.
as some strings, untouched, sound when no one is speaking. So it was when love slipped inside us.
Tree It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being, this clutter of soup pots and books-- Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.
I thought I would love you forever—and, a little, I may, in the way I still move toward a crate, knees bent, or reach for a man: as one might stretch for the three or four fruit that lie in the sun at the top of the tree; too ripe for any moment but this, they open their skin at first touch, yielding sweetness, sweetness and heat, and in me, each time since, the answering yes.
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He gazes through sunlight's buttresses, back down the refectory at the others, wallowing in their plenitude of bananas, thick palatals of their hunger lost somewhere in the stretch of morning between them and himself. A hundred miles of it, so suddenly. Solitude, even among the meshes of this war, can when it wishes so take him by the blind gut and touch, as now, possessively. Pirate's again some other side of a window, watching strangers eat breakfast.
Our Founding Fathers understood that our country would survive and flourish if our Nation was committed to good character and an unyielding dedication to liberty and justice for all.
I clearly saw the skeleton underneath all this show of personality what is left of a man and all his pride but bones?
The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.
Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.
There is a thing inherent and natural which existed before heaven and earth. Motionless and fathomless, It stands alone and never changes; It pervades everywhere and never becomes exhausted. It may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe. I do not know its name. If I am forced to give It a name, I call it Tao, and I name it as supreme.