7 Timeless Contemplative Pieces

My current favorite gems that carry ageless wisdom for professional, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing and growth

7 min readNov 8, 2021

Rundown

I was offered these gems throughout the years by my teachers and spiritual guides. Meditating on each piece, reflecting on their profound meanings, has bestowed the gifts of insight, stability, joy, balance, and wellbeing with direct positive impact to my quality of life as well as my personal, professional, emotional, and spiritual growth, with likely ripple effects across all my relations.

Rest in Natural Great Peace by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
A short but powerful poem by the Tibetan lama for the exhausted mind in our violent, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous times. I love the accompanying narrated explanation in the video, which is good material for a deep listening meditation.
A Good Day by Brother David Steindl-Rast
A short video, narrated by the Austrian American Catholic Benedictine monk, author, and lecturer, that is a beautiful and captivating audio visual guided meditation on gratitude, perhaps the most fundamental of spiritual practices with proven, significant benefits to all aspects of life.
Fear attributed to Gibran Khalil Gibran
A beautiful poem by the Lebanese American writer, poet, artist, and philosopher that inspire contemplation of a wide range of rich human concerns like fear, death, transformation, destiny, and acceptance.
The Guest House associated with Jalaluddin Rumi
A beautiful creative assembly of translated verses by Coleman Barks of the Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic’s work that is widely cited and used in many contemplative traditions and teaches us the skill and value of open, allowing, spacious attitude to all that arises within us, teaches us the value of holding reality with all its polarities and qualities as it is, teaches us gratefulness, mercy and compassion for ourselves, among many other lessons.
Prayer of Saint Francis associated with Saint Francis of Assisi
While there’s nothing that indicates this was every written by the Catholic friar, mystic, and preacher, the verses of this prayer have found their way to many spiritual teachings beyond Christianity. This rich and deep work inspires service to others and frames all manner of spiritual work as selfless endeavor for the benefit of all, invoking parallels in Buddhist and other traditions.
On Death by Gibran Khalil Gibran
Another poem from Gibran’s timeless work, The Prophet. That death can be such a freeing and vivifying experience, that its meanings are to be explored in life itself, are among the many teachings one can reap as they fathom these creative and intense verses.
If You Look for Truth Outside Yourself by Zen Master Tung-Shan
This final poem by the Chinese Buddhist monk is a simple and foundational teaching on finding truth in ourselves and the aspiration to be with reality as it is. For the few words that it comprises, for the simplicity of its structure and words, I am still only at the beginning of the journey to truly understand the full depth of its many lessons and meanings.

Rest In Natural Great Peace

By Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, Narrated and Explained in Video by Sogyal Rinpoche

Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind,
Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.
Rest in natural great peace.

A Good Day

Narrated by Brother David Steindl-Rast

You think this is just another day in your life. It’s not just another day; it’s the one day that is given to you today. It’s given to you. It’s a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day of your life, and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.
Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open, that incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us for pure enjoyment. Look at the sky. We so rarely look at the sky. We so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment with clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather, and even of the weather we don’t think of all the many nuances of weather. We just think of good weather and bad weather. This day right now has unique weather, maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again. The formation of clouds in the sky will never be the same that it is right now. Open your eyes. Look at that.
Look at the faces of people that you meet. Each one has an incredible story behind their face, a story that you could never fully fathom, not only their own story, but the story of their ancestors. We all go back so far. And in this present moment on this day all the people you meet, all that life from generations and from so many places all over the world, flows together and meets you here like a life-giving water, if you only open your heart and drink.
Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to us. You flip a switch and there is electric light. You turn a faucet and there is warm water and cold water — and drinkable water. It’s a gift that millions and millions in the world will never experience.
So these are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which you can open your heart. And so I wish for you that you would open your heart to all these blessings and let them flow through you, that everyone whom you will meet on this day will be blessed by you; just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch — just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you, and then it will really be a good day.

Fear

Attributed to Gibran Khalil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

The Guest House

Associated with Jalaluddin Rumi
From Coleman Barks’ Selected Poems by Rumi (Penguin Classics, 2004)

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Prayer of Saint Francis

Associated with Saint Francis of Assisi
From the Wikipedia translation of the French original

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offence, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

On Death

From Gibran Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet

Then Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of Death.
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

If You Look for Truth Outside Yourself

Attributed to Zen Master Tung-Shan

If you look for the truth outside yourself,
it gets farther and farther away.
Today, walking alone,
I meet him everywhere I step.
He is the same as me,
yet I am not him.
Only if you understand it in this way
will you merge with the way things are.

Acknowledgment

My eternal gratitude goes to my most generous teachers, Joel and Michelle Levey. Here is a sample of their work

Their channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/wisdomatwork
Their site: http://www.wisdomatwork.com/
Their books: https://www.amazon.com/Joel-Levey/e/B001K8FLO6/ref=aufs_dp_fta_dsk