owning several names

In the quietness, with nothing to accomplish, there is only direct experience.  

     — Dogen Zenji

Blythe Smith 

The young dogs barked and got excited

but the old dog just kept eating

and then laid down for a nap

thunder rumbling the gray rainy sky

James Lee Jobe

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.  

Lao Tzu

Radovan Skohel

I have owned several names and loved several rivers. The ocean when it's cold and the waves ​are ​breaking across a rocky shore, I love that also. ​And I love ​the excitement of a running child, the tenacity of a hungry squirrel, and the lusty beauty of a low and full moon; I love them all. I do. My list of things to love is a long one, and as the years pass I still add to it. Friend, this is not a bad life.

James Lee Jobe

Nature is party to all of our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

Wendell Berry

Cynthia Bjorn

Your skin is a shell

Your flesh is a shell

Even your mind is a shell

You are the earth

The sky

The water

You are fire and wind

You live in the universe 

Sure

But also know 

That the universe lives in you

One and again

One and again

James Lee Jobe

When all the shrubs

have darkened like hair

a yellow dog is there

tumbling in the snow.

Miyazawa Kenji

Yokoyama Taikan

That I might always keep my heart, my eyes, and my mind open. That compassion might begin with me and grow outward, spreading like ripples on a pond from a pebble I tossed in.

James Lee Jobe

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James