Alpenrose with Rusty Leaves _ Rainer Kunze
Beyond the Idea of ​​Right and Wrong _ Jalaluddin Rumi
Stardust _ Lang Liab
What's important is _ Ellen Barth
To the Heart on Sunday _ Wisława Szymborska
Purification _ Wendell Berry
And people stayed home _ Kitty O'Meara
Wait a minute _ Galway Kinnell
Garden Meditation _ Shamain Asherapa
Danger _ Elizabeth Appel
The Well of Sorrow _ David White
Confessions of a Puppet _ Johnny Welch
Dangers _ Janet Rand
Don't give up the chair _ Ajahn Chah
That Moment _ Margaret Atwood
God and Me _ Hafiz
How many things happen in a day _ Pablo Neruda
Scar _ Nayirah Wahid
Untitled _ Tyler Knott Gregson
The Camino de Santiago _ David White
Being Alive _ Denis Levertov
Defend Joy _ Mario Benedetti
There is no uninteresting person in this world _ Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Birds and Me _ Harun Yahya
Not_Erin Hanson
Go All the Way _ Charles Bukowski
The Bird Behind _ Rainer Kunze
How Light Comes _ Jan Richardson
One Leaf _ Kabir
Gate A4 _ Naomi Shihab Nai
The Last Piece by Raymond Carver
Those Hands Are These Hands _ Michael Rosen
Sins Not Committed _ Margaret Sangster
Mosquito _ Amy Nezukuma Tal
Healing Time _ Pesha Joyce Gertler
Cicada _ Hosho McCreesh
I will not die without living _ Donna Markova
The Scars of Life _ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Hokusai said _ Roger Keyes
Why Care _ Sean Thomas Doherty
I Learned _ Maya Angelou
The Worst Thing _ Nazim Hikmet
Living _ Shuntaro Tanikawa
Flowing _ John O'Donoghue
Paradox _ Walk Around Norris
Can I Hug You? _ Brad Anderson
Trees _ Philip Larkin
Love the Chaos _ Albert Espinosa
My Own Life _ Julio Novoa Polanco
Wings _ Vera Pavlova
Gestalt Prayer _ Fritz Perls
To get to where you are _ T.
S. Eliot
She put it down _ Sapphire Rose
Why Loggers Wake Up Earlier Than Truck Drivers _ Gary Snyder
Dance Slower _ David L.
Weatherford
The Cat Is Right _ Brian Patton
On Living _ Nazim Hikmet
Pencil _ W.
S. Merwin
The Wonderful Truth of Things _ Fernando Pessoa
Finding Your Ancestors Genetic Testing _ Alfred K.
Ramot
On the Worst Day of My Life _ Ellen Barth
Rainy Morning _ Ted Kooser
I Walk _ Rabbi Hillel
Best Song _ Wendell Berry
Hope _ Liesel Muller
A Quiet World _ Jeffrey McDaniel
A Poem Inscribed on an Epitaph _ Edna St. Vincent Millay
Good Bone _ Maggie Smith
Raincoat _ Ada Limon
I'm a better person than you _ Katie Stevenson Worth
The Last Days _ Donald Hall
We Have No Words to Say Goodbye _ Mary Tall Mountain

I want to do to you what spring does to the cherry trees _ Editor's Note
About the poet

“I picked up my wings, they were my wings.”

Reading poetry is a return to oneself, a wonder at the world, and an experience of a multitude of emotions.
The days we have lived ask the days we will live.
Are you living a mindful life, or are you spending time mindlessly?

In a time when social distancing and reflection on life are more necessary than ever, why not share a poem instead of a hand?
Mexican ventriloquists, British sailors' captains, rabbis and Sufi poets from the first century BC, as well as Nobel Prize-winning poets like Pablo Neruda and Wisława Szymborska, the new generation of poets on Facebook and Instagram, and an anonymous man who wrote poetry on the walls of a Ladakhi temple.
Poets from ancient, medieval, and modern times invite readers into rhymed reflections on themselves and others.

A collection of beautiful poems does not make a good poetry collection.
There is a moment when true enlightenment opens the door to poetry.
Following the popular collection of proverbs, "If I Knew Then What I Know Now," and the healing poetry collection, "Love as If You've Never Been Hurt," which garnered praise and popularity from millions of readers, poet Ryu Si-hwa presents mindfulness poems for the first time in 15 years.
Each poem, containing the patterns of life, sends ripples through my heart.

When poetry speaks to you

Some things you once loved
It will be yours forever.
Even if you let them go
They draw a circle
It comes back to you.
They become a part of yourself.
- Allen Ginsberg, "Certain Things" p.5

'When my head gets hot, I know poetry has come,' wrote Emily Dickinson.
There are poems in the world that speak to us and poems that pursue literary experimentation.
Of course, there are poems that harmonize the two, but poems that touch the heart are definitely poems that 'speak to us.'
These are the poems we read when we talk about life.

What must bloom, blooms

What must bloom, blooms
Even on gravel slopes and in the crevices of rocks
Even if no one looks at me
- Rainer Kunze, "Alpenrose with Rusty Leaves," p.11

Alpine Rose, also known as the 'rose in the snow', is a type of azalea that grows near the tree line in the Alps.
You may not know it yourself.
It may seem uncertain, or like you're shrouded in darkness.
But when the sowing season is over and the time comes, the flowers bloom without anyone's intervention.
Winter just lasts a few more days.
If you know that one day it will bloom, then that time is not a time to endure, but a time to love.
When a flower blooms, who sees it first? It is the tree itself.
Whether we are young or old, if we do not extinguish our will like fire in ashes, we have not yet lost the poetry within us.
When trials big and small destroy my strength to get through the day, a good poem gives me the strength to get up.
Edwin Markham, former Poet Laureate of Oregon, says:
“Poetry is as real as bread, and at the same time equally essential to human life.
Poetry is bread for the soul.
It is bread made from the wheat of the earth, but with elements of the heavens.
Poetry nourishes the noble hopes and aspirations of human beings.”

I picked up my wings, they were mine

I've always wondered.
Anywhere in the world
If I could fly
Why do birds always
In one place
Is it staying?

Then suddenly I thought to myself
Asks the same question.
- Harun Yahya, The Bird and I, p.53

Our hearts are born on the same day as we are, sharing the same joys and pains, wonders and loneliness that we experience.
The language of that heart is poetry.
In “Who Reads Poetry,” Ai Weiwei says:
“Reading poetry is seeing beyond reality.
It is about finding out what lies beyond the world before our eyes and experiencing emotions from other lives and other dimensions.
“It is about understanding human nature, and most importantly, sharing it with others, regardless of whether they are young or old, educated or uneducated.”
Poetry shows us life and ourselves.
And poetry awakens the fire within us.
Even if you feel like a dry rag, you must not forget that the more you feel like a dry rag, the easier it is to light a fire.
Poetry tells us to go back to the moment when we first felt love, whether for a person or for the world.
Even if you or the world are inherently imperfect.

A poem for those who need mindfulness

“I chose the poems to include in this collection, refined the lines, and read them out loud several times.
Until that poem becomes my breath.
I hope that your breath as you read this poem will also become poetry.
“These were moments of mindfulness that helped me navigate difficult times.” - From the editor’s note

The reason we take a deep breath and read an unknown book is because we empathize with the author's perspective on life and the world.
That perspective is none other than 'being enough' and the belief that 'we may wander a little, but we will get to exactly where we need to be.'
Ryu Si-hwa, who writes poetry and prose, translates meditation books, and travels constantly, is one of those writers who makes us eagerly await her next work.
“The Poetry of Mindfulness” is a sincere response to that expectation.
Some poems that come flying in by chance are surprising just by feeling, some poems become us in themselves, and some poems give unexpected comfort, reaffirming that the depth of emotion has nothing to do with the thickness of the book.
You can read it with your eyes, read it out loud, or read it to someone else.
A good collection of poetry offers a different dimension of meaning and a sense of life, and lingers long after the last poem has been read.

I love life.
Although
here
such
Even if it's life.
- Marguerite Duras, I Love Life, p.163


Editor's Note (Author's Note)

When I was born, the angel who presided over my birth gave me a box and whispered in my ear.
When you go down to the world and feel your heart heavy, open this box.
That transparent box contained poems, and every time I opened the box when I felt anxious about life, a poem flowing from the wellspring of the human soul unfolded before me, one by one.
Some poems are like flowers that have survived the wind and rain, some poems are like woolen socks that warmed my frozen feet on the Himalayan mountain path, some poems are like hands that supported me as I fell from the cliff of despair, and some poems are like birds that resemble the flash of lightning.

"Here, in my room, things are constantly changing," wrote the American poet Anne Sexton, but in my room, poems of different rhymes, words, and lengths continued to flow.
Reading those poems, born of wisdom and insight, allowed me to turn my head and look at myself, face the truth of life, open the door to finding answers to my questions, and take off the masks that 'almost became my true face' that prevented me from living a full life.

No matter what the angel who presided over your birth gave you in the box, no matter what differences there may be in the width of your eyebrows, forehead, or the shape of your chin, we all share one common destiny.
It's about experiencing every moment of life without forgetting who you are.
Above all, aren't we all travelers (traveling souls) who possess a soul and navigate success and failure, joy and sorrow, light and darkness, multiple moves, frightening diagnoses, and unemployment?
From star to star, from one life to the next.
So what does your soul carry with it as it travels? Is it love, longing, or the enlightenment of moments?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a pioneer in mindfulness meditation, says:
“See your life today as a journey, an adventure.
Where are you going? What are you pursuing? Where are you now? What stage of your journey are you at? If your life were a book, what would you title the chapter you're currently in? Remember, this journey is yours alone, no one else's.
So the path must be your own.
“You can’t be true to yourself while imitating someone else’s journey.”

Reading poetry is an act of returning to oneself and remembering who one is.
In that sense, poetry is a valuable tool for mindfulness.
As Kabat-Zinn explains, mindfulness is simply being present in the present moment, focusing on your breath, which is nothing more than a faint breath, paying attention to each and every thing around you, and seeing the world as it is.
Not to gain anything, but to simply be myself.
When fear, pain, illness, death, war, natural disasters, and other things shake our lives, turning to the center of our hearts is not an escape.
That is spirituality.
― Ryu Si-hwa