A man runs onto a bridge over a canal in Santos, Brazil, June 5, 2012.
Yasuyoshi Chibayasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/GettyImages

Makes us think about: What bridge are we crossing right now…

….and are we crossing it wholeheartedly?

Then we remembered the poem we read this morning, by Ryōkan:

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

Sometimes you can cross a bridge without doing a thing.

photo via Big Picture’s Great Daily Life: June 2012    

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One thought on “what bridge are you crossing?

  1. great line…”why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?”

    from the book, Morning Poems, by Robert Bly…

    Things to Think

    Think in ways you’ve never thought before.
    If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
    Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
    Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats

    Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
    Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
    Has risin out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
    A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.

    When someone knocks at the door, think that he’s about
    To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
    Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
    Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

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