Literary and Spiritual Excerpts
I look back on my humble life with humility. I am sensible of many imperfections that cling to me. I know that the present is neither the season nor the place to begin the preparation …
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness …
You go to an embassy compared with which all the embassies of men dwindle into insignificance. You go forth as ambassadors of Christ. You go to crumble idols — to convey light to benighted minds …
Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent …
And, O Yudhisthira, the Selfcreate Grandsire, Almighty God, spreading illusion, slayeth the creatures by the instrumentality of his creatures, as one may break a piece of inert and senseless wood with wood, or stone with …
To God How many things they say about you — that you created the expanding universe, or was it that the world’s people created you? Whose side do you choose? The rich — who take …
O good Father in Heaven, albeit there is nothing that we greatly fear, having the merciful unto [sic] us and while mutual love and charity each with other maketh us thy children of more strength …
Whichever neighborhood has no clergyman I shall die there. Let no one see how beautiful Are all the things I have, my feet, my hair. In the name of the dead, free and immaculate, A …
Untitled Our cries, she used to say Would scratch the moon’s windowpanes And scrape the corners of tombstones which milked the moon My mother set the long slope of her back against us to interrogate …
String Theory Scientists are still trying to find out what makes the cosmos tick. I don’t even know what makes my dad work, bright thwarted man that he is, would have outdone us all, had …
Wait! thou Maker, thou Modeler, look at us, listen to us, don’t let us fall, don’t leave us aside, thou god in the sky, on the earth, Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth, give us …
In Praise of a Gold and Silver Painted Scene of the Buddha Manifestation in the Pure Land of the West, with a Preface Looking toward the west where the sun sinks away, Behold afar that …
Disaster is to fortune as strands of a single rope. Fate is past understanding — who comprehends its bounds? Force water and it spurts, force an arrow and it goes far: All things are propelled …
“The Heaven Questions” In the beginning of old, all is yet formless, no up or down, Light is still dim, dark is a blur; the only image is a whir. When bright gets brighter, and …
Yun’er’s Bell The first month, Early auspicious, Dinghai day I, Yun’er, the younger son of King Kang of Xu, chose these Auspicious Metals to cast myself a harmonious bell: Endlessly peal and toll! Primally call …
One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all…. The better we understand the intricacies of the universe and all …