Under the trees, among the rocks, a thatched hut:
verses and sacred commentaries live there together.
I'll burn the books I carry in my bag,
but how can I forget the verses written in my gut?
Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and David Schneider in Essential Zen (1994) HarperSanFrancisco.
the old church stands:
proud, tall, and hollowed.
when it’s rebuilt,
will it be another church?
or will it be a shopping mall?
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton
Some love attributing sacredness -- places beyond place, times beyond time, the infinite & the infinitesimal. But anything elevated to the sacred becomes a thing for which people will kill or die. Often, people don't make this reckoning until the dying 's done: -death for a sign -death for a symbol -death for a chunk of dead earth -death for a vaguely evaluated idea The agents of sanctification will kill us all.
They scribble sacred statements on the wall,
and climb the towers, shouting sacred calls.
And, swiftly, people come from far and near
to gather around at the sacred halls.
Some sing beloved songs; others mantra chant
’til sacred sounds are bouncing off the walls.
They read inscriptions carved into the rock,
deciphering meaning from sacred scrawl.
They’re all sure it’s sanctified from on high,
but sacred ‘s what you let hold you in Thrall.
Sitting on the ghat,
folded legs
&
spine straight.
Gazing at the flowing river,
&
thinking that sacred waters
must answer sacred questions.
But they recoil from the answer.
From being shown that they are the river–
a river which forgets that which happened,
while remembering events that never did.
They crave a gift of clarity.
But the only path to understanding
is a backwards plunge into an abyss
in a moment of sacrificial madness.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 