Inspiration

What is the practice?

‘In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.’ In this way you should train yourself.’ (Bahiya Sutta, Ud. 1.10)

Buddha Gotama (490-410 b.C.), North-India

‘The one who seeks, finds the seeking’

(A statement as a lion´s roar from Acariya Dhammawiranatha, who was my teacher for some years. I never found this statement anywhere else. When googling the other day, I really only found the conventional truth that who is seeking, will find. Quod non!)

About the most powerful prayer and about the purest action

The most powerful, the somewhat mightiest prayer by which one can get everything, and the uttermost valuable action are a result of an empty heart. The more empty it is, the more powerful, valuable, useful and praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the action will be. The empty heart can do everything.

What is an empty heart?

Empty is a heart when it is not disturbed by anything and not bound to anything, when it is not troubled by certain emotions and is in no way busy with itself, but fully sunken in the dearest will of God and retired from itself. In that every human action, however humble, will get power and might.

With such a power one should pray, that one would wish that all ones limbs and powers, both ones eyes and ones ears, ones mouth, heart and all the senses would be directed onto that; and one should not stop before one is aware of the wish to unify with Him who stands before ones mind and to whom one is praying, which is God.

Meister Eckhart (Dominican monk, 1260-1328), Erfurt, Germany

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) British writer and poet, winner Nobel prize 1907

Sag mir wo die Blumen sind (Where have all the flowers gone)

Unicef Gala 1962, Düsseldorf, Germany

Marlene Dietrich (German-American actress en singer, 1901 – 1992)

An empty place to stay

Go now into the garden, dear, and lie
in an empty spot in the high grass, that’s what
I’ve always wanted to be, an empty
spot for someone, to stay.

Rutger Kopland (Dutch poet, 1934-2012), 1975

Abide with me

(This song I have always found very moving, because of the question it asks. To me this question is a topic whenever I observe that I am lacking (or imagine that I might lack) what I did develop in my stronger moments: mindfulness. When I insert the ´Thou´ and the ´Lord´ in this song as ´Mindfulness´, then I am able to sing this song at the top of my voice, whether in a full church or in an English football stadium.)

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Henry F. Lyte (1793-1847), Scotland/England

The secret of FC Twente´s dressing room

From hell to heaven. Arise from death. Inch by inch . . .

May 3, 2010, Steve McClaren (trainer), Al Pacino and FC Twente´s media division