Zen is less the study of doctrine than a set of tools for discovering what can be known when the world is looked at with open eyes.
Jane HirshfieldWithin the silence, expansion, and sustained day by day concentration, I grow permeable.
Jane HirshfieldSo much of our lives depends on accidents of birth, time, and geography. This haunts me. In some lives, few "or"s are possible. The pain of that is behind the second stanza of this poem.
Jane HirshfieldOne way poetry connects is across time. . . . Some echo of a writer's physical experience comes into us when we read her poem.
Jane HirshfieldIn my poems though, as you say, the comic arrived fairly late. This doubtless has something to do with growing older. A person who's seen a bit of the world can't help but notice how foolish is the self-centeredness we bring to our tiny slice of existence.
Jane HirshfieldIsn't the small and common the field we live our life in? The large comes into a life through small-paned windows. A breath is small, but everything depends on it. A person looks at you a single, brief moment longer than is necessary, and everything is changed. The smaller the clue, the larger the meaning, it sometimes feels.
Jane Hirshfield