“During this long journey I found the necessary components for the making of the poem. There I received contributions from the earth and from the soul,” said Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904–September 23, 1973) in his Nobel Prize speech. “And I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations in nature.”

Pablo Neruda was only 20 years old when he published Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, the same collection that launched him into international fame and paved the way to one of the highest awards a creative wordsmith can ever receive. Since then, he became one of the most celebrated poets of the twentieth century. Originally written in Spanish, his poems often draw upon what is most relatable and cherished in our everyday experiences. Using his exquisite mastery to weave simple words, he creates unforgettable metaphors illuminating the subtleties of love, the wonder of everyday objects, and the imperceptible mysteries of nature. What sets Neruda’s poetry apart is “this combination of the sensory and the natural, the subjective and the eternal, the instinctual and the commonly transcendent,” all of which we can fully feel in his poem “I Like for You to Be Still,” read here by a sensuous voice of Glenn Close. Please enjoy:

I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL
by Pablo Neruda

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed you mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrows as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.

Complement “I Like for You to Be Still,” an integral part of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, with Gregory Orr’s love letter to nature, wakefulness, and being alive, and then revisit Billy Collins’ ode to an everlasting bond between a mother and her child.

“When the other person realizes that his or her presence has been recognized and confirmed, he or she will blossom like a flower,” wrote great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh while reminding us about the healing power of attention. “If you embrace them with the energy of mindfulness, with your true presence, this energy is completely nourishing. It is like water for a flower. Your presence is the most precious gift you can give him or her.”

We may not always consciously notice it but all the little encounters in our lives, all the people we meet along the way give us attention. By giving us attention they nourish our soul and give us the feeling that we are not alone, that we exist in an interconnected web of the invisible whole. I was recently reminded of this while reading a heartfelt passage from The Book of Disquiet which Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) has rightly called “a single state of the soul, analyzed from all sides, investigated in all directions.”

He writes:

He left today for his home town, apparently for good. I mean the so-called office boy, the same man I’d come to regard as part of this human corporation, and therefore as part of me and my world. He left today. In the corridor, casually running into each other for the expected surprise of our farewell, he timidly returned my embrace, and I had enough self-control not to cry, as in my heart — independent of me — my ardent eyes wanted.

Whatever has been ours, because it was ours, even if only as a casual presence in our daily routine or in what we see, becomes part of us. The man who left today for a Galician town I’ve never heard of was not, for me, the office boy; he was a vital part, because visible and human, of the substance of my life. Today I was diminished. I’m not quite the same. The office boy left today.

Everything that happens where we live happens in us. Everything that ceases in what we see ceases in us. Everything that has been, if we saw it when it was, was taken from us when it went away. The office boy left today. …

Yes, tomorrow or another day, or whenever the bell will soundlessly toll my death or departure, I’ll also be one who’s no longer here, an old copier stowed away in the cabinet under the stairs. Yes, tomorrow or when Fate decides, the one in me who pretended to be I will come to an end. Will I go to my home town? I don’t know where I’ll go. Today the tragedy is visible because of an absence, considerable because it doesn’t deserve consideration. My God, my God, the office boy left today.

Indeed, we never know how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it. Complement this soulful meditation from The Book of Disquiet with Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice on how mindfulness and the gift of attention can help us live in the present moment and connect with other people around us.

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space,” wrote Albert Einstein (1879-1955) in a beautiful letter of consolation to a grieving father. “He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”

If this letter was anonymous and we knew nothing about the one who sent it, how would we describe the person? A contemplative? A sage? An enlightened being? These are the words that come to mind when we read these truly profound lines capturing fundamental truths of our existence. What doesn’t come to mind are words such as scientist, mathematician, or theoretical physicist. For many of us, it feels almost impossible to speak of spirituality and science in the same frame of mind. We consider these two spheres of our lives irreconcilable and opposite each other. Albert Einstein was himself aware of this widespread and persisting dichotomy, and that is why he addressed it in his essay titled Science and Religion included in an altogether indispensable Out of My Later Years. He writes:

It is true that convictions can best be supported with experience and clear thinking. On this point one must agree unreservedly with the extreme rationalist. The weak point of his conception is, however, this, that those convictions which are necessary and determinant for our conduct and judgments, cannot be found solely along this solid scientific way. For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capable…. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations.

Following this train of thought, Einstein notes that, indeed, objective knowledge can serve as a way to achieve certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. He writes:

When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence.

With this, Einstein turns to the essential qualities of the religious person. He writes:

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. it seems to me that what is important is the force of this super-personal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect.

The dichotomy of Science and Religion, an integral part of Einstein’s Out of My Later Years, remains an enduring guide for reconciling the inner conflicts of our minds. Complement it by reading about another persistent dichotomy, that of no-self and conditioned self as described by Ruth King in her book about inclusivity, tolerance, and our shared humanity.

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think,” wrote Fernando Pessoa while contemplating moments of serene presence unburdened by egoic thoughts. “To know yourself in a flash, as I did in this moment, is to have a fleeting notion of the intimate monad, the soul’s magic word. But that sudden light scorches everything, consumes everything. It strips us naked of even ourselves.”

Rereading these intensely stirring lines, I can’t help but wonder about our innate potential to express the full spectrum of our sudden spiritual experiences. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once uttered, “The Tao that can be told of is not the Absolute Tao; the Names that can be given are not Absolute Names.” According to this famous dictum, some things are better left unsaid. Yet sometimes we feel an unstoppable drive to let it out, to write it down, and in doing so attempt to capture the elusive beauty of that which can not be expressed. Indeed, it requires tremendous courage to even attempt such an impossible feat, the courage that Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) shows us in his less-known writings inspired by his intense study and practice of Buddhism. Deeply personal and weaving both Buddhist and Catholic imagery, these sixty-six prose poems can be found in The Scripture of the Golden Eternity.

Kerouac writes:

God is not outside us but is just us, the living and the dead, the never-lived and never-died. That we should learn it only now, is supreme reality, it was written a long time ago in the archives of universal mind, it is already done, there’s no more to do. …

In the beginning was the word; before the beginning, in the beginningless infinite neverendingness, was the essence. Both the word “God” and the essence of the word, are emptiness. The form of emptiness which is emptiness having taken the form of form, is what you see and hear and feel right now, and what you taste and smell and think as you read this. Wait awhile, close your eyes, let your breathing stop three seconds or so, listen to the inside silence in the womb of the world, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, re-recognize the bliss you forgot, the emptiness and essence and ecstasy of ever having been and ever to be the golden eternity. This is the lesson you forgot. …

I remember that I’m supposed to be a man and consciousness and I focus my eyes and the print reappears and the words of the poor book are saying, “The world, as God has made it” and there are no words in my pitying heart to express the knowless loveliness of the trance there was before I read those words, I had no such idea there was a world.

This world has no marks, signs or evidence of existence, nor the noises in it, like accident of wind or voices or heehawing animals, yet listen closely the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it. At night under the moon, or in a quiet room, hush now, the secret music of the Unborn goes on and on, beyond conception, awake beyond existence.

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, a collection of Jack Kerouac’s most inspired writing about Buddhism and spirituality, remains a hidden gem in the legacy of the most beloved American author. Complement this particular portion with Fernando Pessoa’s thoughts, dreams, and meditation in prose contained in The Book of Disquiet.