On the Number 86

85 in Philosophy & Religion
186) Hymn 85 in Book 5 of the Rig Veda is a song of praise
to the Sky God Varuna:
1. SING forth a hymn sublime and solemn, grateful to glorious. Varuna,
    imperial Ruler, Who hath struck out, like one who slays
    the victim, earth as a skin to spread in front of Surya.
2. In the tree-tops the air he hath extended, put milk in kine and vigorous
    speed in horses. Set intellect in hearts, fire in the waters,
    Surya in heaven and Soma on the mountain.
3. Varuna lets the big cask, opening downward, flow through the heaven
    and earth and air's mid-region. Therewith the universe's Sovran
    waters earth as the shower of rain bedews the barley.
4. When Varuna is fain for milk he moistens the sky, the land, and earth
    to her foundation. Then straight the mountains clothe them in
    the rain-cloud: the Heroes, putting forth their vigour, loose them.
5. I will declare this mighty deed of magic, of glorious Varuna
    the Lord Immortal, Who standing in the firmament hath
    meted the earth out with the Sun as with a measure.
 Rig Veda, Book 5, 85.1-5 (circa 1500 B.C.)
187) Chapter 86 in Papyrus of Ani, Egyptian Book of the Dead:
Chapter for being transformed into a swallow.
I am a swallow. I am a swallow, I am that Scorpion-goddess, the daughter of Re. O you gods, may your savor be sweet; a flame has gone up from the horizon. O you who are in the city. I have brought him who guards his coils; give me your hands, for I have spent the day in the Island of Fire, I have gone on an errand and I have returned with a report. Open to me; then I will tell what I have seen. Horus is in command of the Sacred Bark, and the throne of his father Osiris has been given to him, while that Seth the son of Nut is in bonds because of what he has done. What is in Letopolis has been allotted to me, and I have made obeisance to Osiris. I have gone to make inspection and I have returned to speak; let me pass, that I may report on my errand. I am one who goes in esteemed and who goes out distinguished at the portal of the Lord of All; I am pure on that great tomb-plateau, for I have got rid of my evil, I have discarded my wrongdoing. I have cast to the ground the ills which were on my flesh. O you keepers of the gate, make a way for me, for I am one like you. I go out into the day, I walk on my feet, I have power in my strides. O you of the sunshine. I know the secret ways of the portals of the Field of Rushes. See, I have come, having felled my enemies to the ground, and my corpse is buried.
    As for him who knows this chapter, he shall go out into the day, and he shall not be turned away at any portal in the realm of the dead, and he shall assume the shape of a swallow. A matter a million times true.
Egyptian Book of the Dead: Book of Going Forth by Day
Complete Papyrus of Ani, Chapter 86 (circa 1250 B.C.)
(translated by Raymond Faulkner),
Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1994, Plate 25
188) Aphorism 85 of Symbols of Pythagoras:
Ad famineam divitem ne accedito sobolis procreanda causa.
Do not give a rich woman the means of having children.
Because such women are apt to think most of their pleasures and
their appearance, and do but seldom give that personal attendance
to children which is so necessary to the health and growth.
Pythagoras (580-500 B.C.), Symbols of Pythagoras
(translated by Sapere Aude, Collectanea Hermetica, Vol. V, 1894)
reprinted in Percy Bullock, The Dream of Scipio, Aquarian Press,
Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK, 1983, p. 87
189) Fragment 85 of Heraclitus:
The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else,
immortal glory in preference to mortal goods; whereas
the masses simply glut themselves like cattle.
Heraclitus (535-475 B.C.), Fragments #85
from Philip Wheelwright, Heraclitus, Ch. VI: Man Among Men
Princeton University Press, NJ, 1959, p. 83
190) Section 86 of Plato's Phaedo— Pythagorean theory of the soul:
Simmias to Socrates: We Pythagoreans have a theory of the soul which is roughly
like this. The body is held together at a certain tension between the extremes of hot
and cold, and dry and wet, and so on, and our soul is a temperament or adjustment of
these same extremes, when they are combined in just the right proportion. Well, if the
soul is really an adjustment, obviously as soon as the tension of our body is lowered
or increased beyond the proper point, the soul must be destroyed, divine though it is—
just like any other adjustment, either in music or in any product of the arts and crafts,
although in each case he physical remains last considerably longer until they are burned
up or rot away. Find us an answer to this argument, if someone insists that the soul,
being a temperament of physical constituents, is the first thing to be destroyed by
what we call death. Socrates opened his eyes very wide— a favorite trick of his—
and smiled. Really, he said, Simmias' criticism is quite justified, so if any of you
are readier-witted than I am, you had better answer him.
Plato (428-348 BC), Phaedo 86b-d (360 BC)
(trans. Hugh Tredennick), Edited by Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns,
Plato: The Collected Dialogues, Bollingen Series LXXI,
Princeton University Press, 1961, pp. 68-69
191) Section 86 of Plato's Meno— Socrates on the soul's prior knowledge and virtue:
Socrates: If he did not acquire them [knowledge] in this life, isn't it immediately
clear that he possessed and had learned them during some other period?... may we say
that his soul has been forever in a state of knowledge?... And if the truth about
reality is always in our soul, the soul must be immortal, and one must take courage
and try to discover— that is, to recollect— what one doesn't happen to know,
or, more correctly, remember, at the moment... What is virtue? and can it be taught?
Plato (428-348 BC), Meno 86a-d (360 BC)
(trans. Hugh Tredennick), Edited by Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns,
Plato: The Collected Dialogues, Bollingen Series LXXI,
Princeton University Press, 1961, p. 371
192) 86th Verse of Buddha's Dhammapada: Chapter VI— The Spiritually Mature
Those people who conform themselves to the
well-explained Truth of Things and who are desirous
of reaching the Further Shore will pass over
the Realm of Death, so difficult to transcend.
on the bank right here before us.
Buddha, Dhammapada, Verse 86 (240 B.C.)
(translated by Sangharakshita, Dhammapada: The Way of Truth,
Windhorse Publications, Birmingham, UK, 2001, p. 36)
193) 86th Verse in Chapter 18 of Astavakra Gita
(Sage Astavakra's dialogue with King Janaka):
The great one has no care whether the body dies or lives.
Resting on the foundation of the self,
he forgets the cycle of births and deaths.
Astavakra Gita Chapter 18, Verse 86 (circa 400 B.C.)
translated by Radhakamal Mukerjee, Astavakra Gita,
Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, India, 1971, p. 162.
194) 86th Aphroism Patanjali's Yoga Sutra:
The habit of not-causing-injury being confirmed,
hostilities are given up in his presence.
Vyasa Commentary: Horse and buffalo, rat and cat, snake and mongoose,
and others being natural enemies of each other, give up their animosities,
by following the tendencies of the mind of the revered one,
whose habit of not causing injury is confirmed.
Patanjali (circa 200 B.C.), Yoga Sutra II.35: Aphroism 86 (circa 200 B.C.)
translated by Rama Prasada, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Delhi, 1995, p. 164
195) Text 86 of On Prayer: 153 Texts
of Evagrios the Solitary (345-399 AD)
Spiritual knowledge has great beauty: it is the helpmate of prayer,
awakening the noetic power of the intellect to contemplation of divine knowledge.
The Philokalia (4th-15th century AD),
translated by F.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, & Kallistos Ware,
Faber & Faber, London, 1979, p. 65)
196) Text 86 of On the Spiritual Law: 200 Texts
of Saint Mark the Ascetic (early 5th century AD)
He who neglects action and depends on theoretical knowledge holds a staff
of reed instead of a double-edged sword; and when he confronts his enemies
in time of war, 'it will go into his hand, and pierce it' (2 Kings 18:21),
injecting its natural poison.
The Philokalia (4th-15th century AD),
translated by F.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, & Kallistos Ware,
Faber & Faber, London, 1979, p. 116)
197) Text 86 of On Those who Think that They are Made Righteous by Works:
226 Texts of Saint Mark the Ascetic (early 5th century AD)
We have a love for the causes of involuntary thoughts, and that is why
they come. In the case of voluntary thoughts we clearly have a love not
only for the causes but also for the objects with which they are concerned.
The Philokalia (4th-15th century AD),
translated by F.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, & Kallistos Ware,
Faber & Faber, London, 1979, p. 132)
198) Text 86 of On Watchfulness and Holiness
of Saint Hesychios the Priest (8th or 9th century AD)
If a man does not carry out the will and law of God 'in his inward parts',
that is, in his heart, he will not be able to carry them out easily in the
outward sphere of the senses either. The careless and unwatchful man will say
to God: 'I do not want to know Thy ways' (Job 21:14), obviously because
he lacks divine illumination. But he who participates in that light will be
confident and steadfast in matters that concern God.
The Philokalia (4th-15th century AD),
translated by F.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, & Kallistos Ware,
Faber & Faber, London, 1979, p. 177)
199) Text 86 of For the Encouragement of the Monks in India who had Written to Him:
100 Texts of Saint Diadochos of Photiki (circa 400-486 AD)
For there are two different ways in which God recedes. First He recedes
in order to educate us. But this receding does not by any means deprive
the soul of divine light. All that happens is that grace often hides its
presence from the intellect, so that the soul may advance through resisting
the attacks of the demons by seeking help from God with great humility and fear;
and in this way it gradually comes to know the wickedness of its enemy...
The second kind of receding is when God withdraws altogether from the soul
that does not want Him; and this indeed delivers the soul captive to the demons.
We, however, are not children from whom God has withdrawn— heaven forbid!
We believe ourselves to be true children of God's grace, which nurses us by
briefly concealing its presence and then revealing itself once more, so that
through its goodness we may grow to our full stature.
The Philokalia (4th-15th century AD),
translated by F.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, & Kallistos Ware,
Faber & Faber, London, 1979, p. 286)
200) Text 86 of On the Character of Men: 170 Texts
of Saint Anthony of Egypt (251-356 AD)
When meditating on divine realities, be full of goodness, free from envy,
devout, self-restrained, gentle, as generous as possible, kindly, peaceable,
and so on. For to conform to God through such qualities, and not to judge
anyone or to say that he is wicked and has sinned, is to render the soul
inviolate. One should search out one's own faults and scruntinize one's
own way of life, to see whether it conforms to God. What concern is it
of ours if another man is wicked?
The Philokalia (4th-15th century AD),
translated by F.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, & Kallistos Ware,
Faber & Faber, London, 1979, p. 342)
201) In Section 86 of Lankavatara Sutra, Buddha answers Mahamati
the Bodhisatva-Mahasattva's questions on what is meant by all things being momentary:
The Blessed One said: Momentary is the Alaya-vijnana [Storehouse Conscisousness] known
as the Tathagata-garbha, which is together with the Manas and with the habit-energy of
the evolving Vijnanas— this is momentary. But the Alaya-vijnana which is together
with the habit-energy of the non-outflows (anasrava) is not momentary. This is not
understood by the ignorant who are addicted to the doctrine of momentariness. Their
thoughts are infused with the habit-energy of discrimination which cherishes the view of
momentariness and nihilism. Furthermore, gold, vajra, and the relics of the Buddha, owing
to their specific character, are never destroyed but remain the same until the end of time.
If, the nature of enlightenment is momentary, the wise would lose their wiseness (aryatva),
but they have never lost it. Gold and vajra remain the same until the end of time;
remaining the same they are neither diminished nor increased.
The Lankavatara Sutra (before 443 AD)
(translated from the Sanskrit by D. T. Suzuki, 1932, pp. 202-204)
202) 86th Verse of Sagathakam: Lankavatara Sutra:
The triple world is no more than thought-construction (prajnapti),
there is not reality in its self-nature; by means of this
thought-constructed reality, logicians go on discriminating.
The Lankavatara Sutra (before 443 AD)
(translated from the Sanskrit by D. T. Suzuki, 1932, p. 233 & p. 145)
203) In the 99 Names of Allah, the 85th Name is Dhû-l-Jalâli wa-l-Ikrâm:
Lord of Majesty and Generosity, Lord of Glory and Honor.
204) Chapter 86 of Mohammed's Holy Koran is titled "The Nightly Visitant"
I swear by the heaven and the comer by night;
And what will make you know what the comer by night is?
The star of piercing brightness;
There is not a soul but over it is a keeper.
So let man consider of what he is created:
He is created of water pouring forth,
Coming from between the back and the ribs.
Most surely He is able to return him (to life).
On the day when hidden things shall be made manifest,
He shall have neither strength nor helper.
I swear by the raingiving heavens,
And the earth splitting (with plants);
Most surely it is a decisive word,
And it is no joke.
Surely they will make a scheme,
And I (too) will make a scheme.
So grant the unbelievers a respite: let them alone for a while.
 Mohammed, Holy Koran Chapter 86.1-17 (7th century AD)
(translated by M. H. Shakir, Holy Koran, 1983)
205) 85th Verse of Chapter 5 in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara:
Only a moderate amount should be eaten, after sharing with those who
have fallen into misfortune, and with those who are without protection,
and with those engaged in a religious vow; because, with the exception
of the three robes of the monk, one ought to sacrifice all.
Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara: Entering the Path of Enlightenment
V.85 (Guarding of Total Awareness: Samprajanyaraksana) (circa 700 AD)
(translated by Marion L. Matics, Macmillan, London, 1970, pp. 169-170)
206) Verse 85 of Chapter 6 in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara:
Should another cover up his merits, kindnesses, and other good qualities?
Should he not accept that which is offered? Speak of what does not make you angry!
Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara: Entering the Path of Enlightenment
VI.85 (Perfection of Patience: Ksanti-paramita) (circa 700 AD)
(translated by Marion L. Matics, Macmillan, London, 1970, p. 180); Bodhisattva Path
207) Verse 85 of Chapter 8 in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara:
Consequently, relinquishing desire, let joy arise in
tranquil forest places, empty of strife and of labor.
Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara: Entering the Path of Enlightenment
VIII.85 (Perfection of Contemplation: Dhyana-paramita) (circa 700 AD)
(translated by Marion L. Matics, Macmillan, London, 1970, p. 201); Bodhisattva Path
208) 85th Verse of Chapter 9 in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara:
As long as there is a complete collection of causes,
the body is taken to be a man. Likewise, as long as
it is in its memebers, the body is seen there.
Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara: Entering the Path of Enlightenment
IX.85 (Perfection of Wisdom: Prajna-paramita) (circa 700 AD)
(translated by Marion L. Matics, Macmillan, London, 1970, p. 219)
209) 86th Saying of Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu:
The master addressed the assembly saying,
"To seek for mind is to deviate from it."
A monk asked, "What about it when mind is not sought?"
The master struck him three times and said,
"I have not wronged you."
 Chao Chou (778-897),
The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, Sayings #86
translated by James Green, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 1998, p. 37
210) Section 85 of Rinzai's Lin-chi Lu:
The master came to Horin who remarked: "As it happens, I want to ask you something, may I?"
The master said: "Why gouge out healthy flesh to make a wound?"
Horin said: "Brilliant shines the moon over the sea casting no shade.
Sporting about in it, the fish goes astray."
The master said: "As the moon over the sea casts no shade anyway,
how can the playful fish go astray?"
Horin said: "Observing wind, I know waves will blow up;
sail boats skim the water with straining sheets."
The master said: "Alone shines the solitary moon, rivers and mountains
are quiet. One laugh by itself startles heaven and earth."
Horin said: "Your tongue may brighten heaven and earth,
but let's have a word to test it."
The master said: "When you chance upon a swordsman, show him your sword.
Do not give your poem to a man who is not a poet."
Horin retired. And the master made this verse of praise:
"The Great Way surpasses all that is, free to go West or East.
Spark does not fly from flint so fast, nor lightning flash by.
Rinzai Gigen (died Jan. 10, 866 A.D.),
The Zen Teaching of Rinzai, #85
(translated from the Chinese by Irmgard Schloegl)
Shambhala, Berkeley, 1976, p. 89
210A) Section 86 of Record of the Chan Master "Gate of the Clouds":
Someone asked Yunmen, "Would you please, Master, tell me
what the cardinal meaning of our Chan tradition is?"
The Master said, "In the South there's Master Xuefeng,
and in the North Master Zhaozhou." Master Yunmen (864-949),
Record of the Chan Master "Gate of the Clouds"
translated by Urs App, Kodansha International, NY & Tokyo, 1994, p. 128
211) Case 85 of Hekiganroku: The Master of Toho Hermitage Roars Like a Tiger
Main Subject: A monk came to visit the master of Toho hermitage and said to him,
"If, on this mountain, you were suddenly to meet a tiger, what would you do?"
The master roared like a tiger. The monk pretended to be frightened. The master
roared with laughter. The monk said, "You old robber!" The master said, "Try as
you may, you cannot do anything to me." The monk stopped short. [Setcho says,
"They were both veteran robbers, but they stopped their ears and tried to steal the bell."]
Setcho's Verse:
A chance, and if you fail to seize it,
You miss by a thousand miles.
The tiger, had fine stripes
But no fangs and claws.
Remember the battle on Mount Taiyu:
Their words and actions shook the earth.
If you have eyes to see, you see
They caught both head and tail of it.
Setcho (980-1052), Hekiganroku, 85 (Blue Cliff Records)
(translated by Katsuki Sekida, Two Zen Classics, 1977, pp. 366-367)
[Notes: The master of Toho hermitage. His name is not recorded. He was
a disciple of Rinai and lived on Mount Toho. This case gives an example of how even veteran
may fail in Dharma beattle. There was no keen cut and thrust in their dull dialogue.]
211A) Section 86, Chapter 1 of Hildegard von Bingen's Liber Vitae Meritorum (1163)
The Strength of Holiness Is Unfailing— Kings and leaders who were previously honored
are no longer noticed because they were not heavenly kings and leaders. Those who were
of lesser order and without riches rises up from that order and poverty as if they were
ascending Olympus, but then they fall back down. The strength of holiness, however, which
is the source of all good things and which brings forth all good things, will not fall down,
but it will have eternal life. These things, however, have been spoken concerning the
atonement for the cleansing and saving of souls, and they are faithful things. A faithful
person pays attentiion to these things and remembers them well.
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179),
Liber Vitae Meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of Life), I.86
Translated from the Latin by Bruce W. Hozeski,
Garland Publishing Inc., New York, 1994, p. 51
212) Parzival uses his skill to strengthen himself
in healing his uncle Anfortas, the Fisher King
in the 85th Line of Chapter 16 in Eschenbach's Parzival:
One brought to him a cheerful mood,
And some for joy and cure were good,
As each one had the quality.
In them vast power one could see
Whose skill his wit can strengthen.
In this way they must lengthen
Anfortas' life— their heart he bore.
His fate brought on them grieving sore.
But joy is reaching him afresh,
For he has reached Terr' de Salvaesch'
Wolfram von Eschenbach (1165-1217) Parzival (1195)
Book XVI: "Parzival Becomes King of the Grail", Lines 81-90
(translated by Edwin H. Zeydel & Bayard Quincy Morgan,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1951, p. 325)
213) Section 85 in Chapter II:
"The Essentials of Learning"
of Chu Hsi's Chin-ssu lu (1175):
Those who understand the higher things return to Principle of Nature,
while those who understand the lower things follow human desires.
Chu Hsi (1130-1200), Reflections on Things at Hand (Chin-ssu lu)
translated by Wing-Tsit Chan
Columbia University Press, NY, 1967, p. 75
214) Section 85 of William of Auvergne's The Trinity, or the First Principle:
For one by reason and one by number do not make a plurality by their conjunction,
except perhaps under the common one that they divide and share. Hence, it is necessary
that the first plurality shares essentially in the one that is immediately prior to it.
But if that one were a one by reason, then the first plurality will not be brought
to an end in it. Therefore, there will necessarily be a plurality beyond it. Hence,
it will not be the first plurality that is united in that one. Therefore, it must be
one in number; thus what precedes the first plurality according to the manner of our
understanding is the first one. Hence, the first plurality shares in the first one
essentially, and the first one is thus somehow many or plural.
    Again, what is most distant from the first source of being (essendi) is least
in actuality, but most in potency, such that potentiality is at the maximum and act at
the minimum. This is the time and every non-permanent disposition, which is in actuality
as if for a moment, but is essentially in potency and in a sense totally so... Therefore,
the first emanation has the most actuality and the least potentiality. But if its essence
were not necessary being (esse) through itself, but was possible being (esse) in itself,
then the first emanation will have in itself no necessity or actuality at all.
William of Auvergne (1180-1249), The Trinity, or the First Principle, Ch. XIV
(translated by Roland J. Teske & Francis C. Wade,
Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, 1989, pp. 121-122)
215) Koan 85 of Master Kido's Kidogoroku:
Listen
A monk asked Master Dojo, "Without being taken in by the circumstances,
how can one get hold of the essence of seing and hearing?"
Dojo said, "Listen." The monk bowed.
Dojo said, "Even if the deaf can sing a foreign song, whether
it is good or bad, high or low, he does not know it of himself."
The monk said, "No matter how deaf one may be,
the original essence of hearing is there, isn't it."
Dojo said, "The rock stands in empty space, the fire burns under water."
[Note: The monk is asking for the "original self"
(or "Buddha nature"— the source of the sense-events). Dojo, who understands
that the monk is taken in by the concept of a nonsensual "essence," suggests that
the monk, instead of searching for the "essence" of hearing, just "listen." In bowing,
the monk pretends to have understood; at this Dojo suggests that the monk is no less
"deaf" than he was before bowing. The monk challenges Dojo with the doctrine that
"Buddha nature" (or "enlightened listening") is to be found in all beings. Countering
the monk's preoccupation with "essence", Dojo, in the "rock and fire" saying suggests
the spirit-free ("not-taken-in-by-circumstances") way of "enlightened seeing."]
Kido Chigu (1189-1269), every end exposed, Koan 85
(translated by Yoel Hoffmann, Autumn Press, Brookline, MA, 1977, p. 109)
216) Section 85 of Meister Eckhart's Commentary on Exodus:
Eternity and every duration in general concerns the very existence of things,
for everything is said to last as long as its existence remains. Thus the modes
of duration are distinguished according to the different forms of existence:
Eternity refers to the divine existence; "aeon" to the existence of unchangeable
created things; and time to the existence of changeable things. It then follows
that duration, in itself, primarily and formally concerns the very act of existence.
The existence of created things is not their essence, but is something posterior to
it in the order of understanding. Therefore, the duration of God, whose existence
is his very substance, is something prior to eternity. But if it is prior, it is also
posterior, because the First or Principle and the End always coincide and agree
with each other. This is what is said here: "The Lord has reigned forever and ever."
The Primal Eternity by its mode of signification is related to the "eternal" as
"source" is to "essence". But "source" is proper to God, and "essence" is proper
to the creature, as is clear from the treatise "On the Source".
Meister Eckhart (1260-1329), Commentary on Exodus, Section 85
Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher
(Translated & Edited by Bernard McGinn, Paulist Press, NY, 1986, p. 72)
217) Letter 86 of The Letters of Marsilio Ficino:
Imitation is more powerful than reading
Marsilio Ficino to the magnanimous Lorenzo de' Medici: greetings.
Just as harmony has a more powerful effect when actually flowing into our ears
than when subsequently recollected, and as a battle stirs us more deeply when watched
than when being recounted, so the outstanding deeds of illustrious men rouse us more
to the pursuit of virtue and fashion us more perfectly for it than do the words of
orators and philosophers discussing moral conduct. For nature has so provided that
things themselves have much more power than their names. And the truth itself moves
the heart more effectively than that which either bears the semblance of truth or
is untrue altogether. For this reason imitation of the Socratic way of life leads
more people more surely to virtue than the moral teaching of Aristotle. And Christ
alone by His example has been of greater profit to more people in leading them towards
a noble and holy life than all the orators and philosophers with their words...
Your grandfather and my patron Cosimo, a man surpassing others in prudence, dutiful
towards God, just and magnanimous towards men, in himself even-tempered, full of care
for his family, yet watching even more carefully over the affairs of state; a man who
lived not for himself alone but for God and his country. Among men no heart was more
humble nor yet more lofty than his. Lorenzo, I discussed philosophy fruitfully with
him for more than twelve years... He followed the example of the philosopher Solon,
putting philosophy into practice excellently throughout his whole life, even in the
most critical affairs, yet practising it best in the period when he moved from this
world of shadow to the light. And, as you know, for you were there, shortly after we had
finished reading Plato's book on the one origin of things and the highest good, he died,
as if now about to drink deeply of that good itself which he had tasted in discussion.
Farewell, and just as God created Cosimo as a model of the universe, mould yourself
on the model of Cosimo. Indeed you have begun to do so.
 Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499),
Letter to Niccolo Michelozzi
The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Vol. I, Shepheard-Walwyn, London, 1975, pp. 135-136
218) Section 85 of Wang Yang Ming's Instructions for Practical Living:
I asked about the investigation of things. The Teacher said,
"To investigate (ko) is to rectify. It is to rectify that
which is incorrect so it can return to its original correctness."
Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529),
Instructions for Practical Living or Ch'uan-hsi lu (1518), I.85
(translated by Wing-tsit Chan, Columbia University Press, NY, 1963, p. 55)
219) Jacob Boehme's The Way to Christ (1624)
There are 124 sections in the 9th Treatise on The Four Humours
Section 85:
Proper faith is that the soul-spirit with its will desires and enters into
that with the desire so that it does not see nor feel anything. Understand:
The soul, which it comes to purely and alone, does not stand in this time
nor does it send the subtle willing spirit (which arises out of its fire-life)
into it. In the same willing spirit, so long is the desire in the soul, for the
same pearl is a spark of divine love. It is a pull of the Father in His love.
Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), The Way to Christ (1624), 9.85
(translated by Peter Erb, Paulist Press, NY, pp. 265-266)
Bibliography, Online texts
220) Verse 85 in Book I of Angelus Silesius The Cherubinic Wanderer (1657):
Wie hört man Gotte Wort?

So du das Ewge Wort in
dir wilt hören sprechen:
So mustu dich zuvor vom
hören gantz entbrechen. 		How God's Word Is Heard

If thou wouldst hear
the Eternal Word speak unto thee,
First must thou wholly lose
the hearing faculty.
Angelus Silesius (1624-1677), The Cherubinic Wanderer I.85
Alexandrines of Angelus Silesius (1657), translated by Julia Bilger
The Driftwind Press, North Montpelier, VT, 1944, p. 37 (German version, I.85)
221) There are 99 verses in the Seventh Book of The Divine Pymander
by Hermes Trismegistus
Verse 85 of The Divine Pymander (1650):
O Life, save all that is in us: O Light enlighten, O God the Spirit;
for the Mind guideth or feedeth the Word ; O Spirit bearing Workman.
Translated from the Arabic by Dr. John Everard (1650)
The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus VII.85
George Redway, London, 1884, p. 49)
222) Section 85 of Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia (1749):
That the celestial man is the "seventh day", and that the seventh day was
therefore hallowed, and called the Sabbath, are arcana which have not hitherto
been discovered. For none have been acquainted with the nature of the celestial
man, and few with that of the spiritual man, whom in consequence of this ignorance
they have made to be the same as the celestial man, notwithstanding the great
difference that exists between them [The spiritual man's acts are based on faith,
but a celestial man's acts are based on love.] His kingdom in the heavens and on
the earth is called, from Him, a Sabbath, or eternal peace and rest... Such is
the quality of the celestial man that he act not according to his own desire,
but according to the good pleasure of the Lord, which is his "desire". Thus he
enjoys internal peace and happiness— here expressed by "being uplifted over
the lofty things of the earth"— and at the same time external tranquillity
and delight, which is signified by "being fed with the heritage of Jacob."
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)
Arcana Coelestia, #85 (Swedenborg Foundation, NY, 1965, pp. 45-46)
223) 85th Section of Swedenborg's Worlds in Space (1758)
relates to the planet Mars and its spirits and inhabitants:
The spirits of Mars are among the best of all spirits from the worlds of this solar
system. For to a large extent they are like celestial men, not dissimilar from those
of the Most Ancient Church in this world. When their nature is pictured, they are
shown with their faces in heaven and their bodies in the world of spirits, and those
of them who are angels with their faces turned towards the Lord, and their bodies in heaven.
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), The Worlds in Space, 85
(translated from Latin by John Chadwick, Swedenborg Society, London, 1997, p. 59)
224) Chapter 86 of Franklin Merell-Wolff's Pathways through to Space (1936)
is titled "A New Word":
In the effort to give expression to Values which have their source in the Transcendent World, a serious difficulty is encountered, owing to the inadequate supply of words having the appropriate meaning. One result is, that very often the writer or speaker asserts ineffability in a wider sense than is necessarily the case. The Transcendent as such is inexpressible withing the relative manifold, but there is an intermediate domain, between the Transcendent proper and the more restricted subject-object consciousness, where partial expression is possible. If this were not so, it would be entirely useless to write or say anything on these subjects. But when we come to the question of how far expression is possible, there is no definite answer. The problem seems to be much like that of the evaluation of an irrational number in terms of rational numbers... For the expression of the Transcendent, the Sanskrit is unquestionably the best of the faily well know vehicles, for in this language there are many words representing metaphysical significance, for which there are no equivalents to be found in western languages...
    I have coined a new word that seems to supply an unfilled need. It is the noun, 'intoception', with the verb form, 'introceive'. This word is from the combining forms 'intro', meaning 'within', 'into', and 'in', and 'capere', meaning 'take'. Hence it has the primary meaning 'to take into or in'. The principal meaning for which I find this word useful is: 'The process or mode of consciousness which penetrates to profundity through the affective function.' Thus, it is the kind of insight aroused through music, poetry, and the fine arts in general. Both the words 'understanding' and 'perception' have been, at times, stretched in their meaning to carry this significance...
    In principle, inward penetration is possible through any of the three modes of consciousness, or various combinations of them; but, practically, perception as a complex of sensation— not intuition— is rarely a Road in this cycle. Thus, in general, man Enters through understanding, or introception, or intuitive perception; or rather with one or the other of these as the predominant mode of his consciousness. With most individuals who reach the Outer Court of the Path, introception or intuitive perception is more developed than understanding, and thus he who would directly influence the greater number of people should speak mostly to the introceptive or intuitively perceptive consciousness. On the other hand, those who have attained a considerable development of power are likely to have exceptional understanding, at least in some fields. Thus, he who would effect an influence with the latter group must appeal, in large measure, to the understanding.
    Note: Subsequently, I have broadened the meaning of introception so as to designate a third function of consciousness defined as: "The Power whereby the Light of Consciousness turns upon Itself toward Its Source."
Franklin Merrell-Wolff
Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887-1985), Pathways through to Space,
Chapter LXXXVI: A New Word (November 7, 1936)
(2nd Edition, Julian Press, NY, 1973, pp. 226-228)
225) Chapter 85 of Wei Wu Wei's Ask the Awakened (1963)
is titled "Mises au Point":

One must know that one is not in order to be able
to understand that we are.
    As long as one believes that one is, as long
as there remains a smouldering ember of this belief,
it will be difficult, if not impossible, to apprehend
or to experience in what manner we can really be.

                *                 *                 *
    'Every single sight and sound' is an effect
of subject-object: no objective effect can appear
to exist without a subject-cause (or vice versa).
    Therefore 'every single sight and sound' is that subject-object integrated in subjectivity.
    Subjectivity does not 'see' or 'hear' any sight or sound: it is that sight or sound—
not as a sight or sound but as a see-ing or a hear-ing.

                *                 *                 *
    'There is absolutely nothing which can be attained.'
(Huang Po, Wan Ling Record, p. 125)
    'Attainment'— an object, experienced, in time—
represents three modes of unreality, and is therefore a threefold illusion.
Three-in-one, for attainment is pure objectivity.
    'I assure you that one who comprehends the truth of "nothing to be attained"
is already seated in the sanctuary (bodhimandala) where he will gain his
Enlightenment.' (Huang Po, Wan Ling Record, p. 128)
    There you see: you are sitting pretty! Even though a bodhimandala
may sound a trifle draughty in these northern climates.
[ please don't mistake this comment for sarcasm. Even apart
from the authority of Huang Po, who knew, is it not evident?]
Wei Wu Wei (1895-1986), Ask the Awakened (1963), pp. 200-201
226)

Paul Brunton (1898-1981),
Notebooks of Paul Brunton,
XV, Paras #85
from various chapters
Volume 15:
Advanced Contemplation
& The Peace Within You,
Larson Publications,
Burdett, NY, 1988,
Part I: pp. 15, 103, 143,
          pp. 181, 226-227
Part II: pp. 12, 47-48, 89
(Excerpts)

 Para #85 from Volume 15 of Paul Brunton's
Notebooks: "Advanced Contemplation"—
Here, on this Short Path, he is to direct his yearnings and seekings, his hopes and thoughts, solely to the Overself. Nothing and nobody, not even a guru, is to come between them. (1.85)
Although it is quite correct to say that we grow through experience, that suffering has valuable lessons, and so on, we must also rememeber that these are only half-truths. The other half is that by Short Path identifications, we can so totally change our outlook that adverse experience becomes unnecessay. (5.85)
It is an experience wherein he finds himself aware of the ego from within itself and also, at the same time, aware of it as an observer. This is not to be confused with an experience wherein he finds himself standing behind his body, not identifying with it but observing it: yet he still remains in ego. (6.85)
Noises and sights may be still present in the background of consciousness but the pull and fascination of the inner being will be strong enough to hold him and they will not be able to move his attention away from it. This, of course, is an advanced state; but once mastered and familiar, it must yield to the next one. Here, as if passing from this waking world to a dream one, there is a slip-over into universal space, incredibly vast and totally empty. Consciousness is there but, as he discovers later, this too is only a phase through which it passes. Where, and when, will it all end? When Consciousness is led— by Grace— to itself, beyond its states, phases, and conditions where man, at last, is fit to meet God. (7.85)
In that sacred moment when an awed silence grips the soul, we are undone. The small and narrow bricks with which we have built our house of personal life collapse and tumble to the ground. The things we worked and hungered for slip into the limbo of undesired and undesirable relics. The world of achievement, flickering with the activities of ambition, pales away into the pettiness of a third-rate play.(8.85)
Para #85 from Volume 15 of Paul Brunton's
Notebooks: "The Peace Within You"—
Artificial pleasures are not the same as enduring happiness. They come from outside, from stimulated senses, whereas it comes from within. (1.85)
He who has attuned himself to the egoless life and pledged himself to the altruistic life will find that in abandoning the selfish motives which prompt men he has lost nothing after all. For whatever he really needs and whenever he really needs it, it will come to his hands. And this will be equally true whether it be something for himself or for fulfilment of that service to which he is dedicated. Hence a Persian scripture says: "When thou reachest this station [the abandonment of all mortal attachments], all that is thy highest wish shall be realized. (3.85)
Every outer activity is to be brought to an end; every inner on is to be stilled. (4.85)
227) "Step One: Attention" is Lesson 85 of Subramuniyaswami's
Chapter 13: Five Steps to Enlightenment
in his book Merging with Siva (1999):
The grand old man of the East who ordained me, Jnanaguru Yoganathan, Yogaswami of Jaffna, used to say time and time again, "It was all finished long ago." It's finished already. The whole mind is finished, all complete, in all stages of manifestation. Man's individual awareness flows through the mind as the traveler treads the globe.
    Now we come to the real study, and this applies right to you and to you personally: the five steps on the path of enlightenment. What are they? Attention, concentration, meditation, contemplation and Self Realization. Those are the five steps that awareness has to flow through, gaining strength each time, on the path to enlightenment. When we first start, awareness is flowing through many areas of the mind. And if it is a mature awareness, we will say it's a great big ball of light, flowing through the mind. And if it's not a mature awareness, it's like a little ping-pong ball, bouncing around. The little ping-pong ball awareness is not going to walk the path of enlightenment, so to speak. It's going to bobble around in the instinctive mind, incarnation after incarnation, until it grows to a great big ball, like a great big beach ball. Then finally it will have enough experiences flowing through the mind to turn in on itself. When this happens, certain faculties come into being. One of them is willpower. And we learn to hold attention. We learn to hold awareness at attention. Awareness: attention!
    What is attention? Attention is the first of the five steps on the path, that is, holding awareness steady, centralized in only one area of the mind, and the area that we choose it to be in, not the area that someone else has chosen it to be in. Our awareness is moved around by other people through the mind at such a fast rate that we think we are moving awareness ourself, so to speak. That's a funny way to talk because I'm saying we move awareness as if awareness is something else, other than us. But awareness and energy and willpower are all the same thing. So, we will just call it awareness from here on out. When other people move awareness through one area or another, we call that distraction, or worldly distractions. The mission is to move awareness yourself. How do you learn to do that? By holding it at attention.
    How does attention work? Attention is awareness poised like a hummingbird over a flower. It doesn't move. The flower doesn't move, and awareness becomes aware of the flower— poised. The entire nerve system of the physical body and the functions of breath have to be at a certain rhythm in order for awareness to remain poised like a hummingbird over a flower. Now, since the physical body and our breath have never really been disciplined in any way, we have to begin by breathing rhythmically and diaphragmatically, so that we breathe out the same number of counts as we breathe in. After we do this over a long period of time— and you can start now— then the body becomes trained, the external nerve system becomes trained, responds, and awareness is held at attention.
Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001)
Merging with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Metaphysics
Himalayan Academy, Kapaa, Hawaii, 1999, pp. 177-178
228) Chapter 85 of Zen Master Seung Sahn's
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is titled "Language-Route and Dharma-Route":
February 23, 1975
Dear Steve,
    How are you doing lately? Thank you for your letter. I was waiting for it and was glad to receive it. In your letter you said, "black ink on white paper— only like this." These are very fine words. But there are two kinds of "like this" answers: language-route and Dharma-route. For example, take the following kong-an:
    Here is a bell. If you say it is a bell, you are attached to name and form.
    If you say it is not a bell, you are attached to emptiness. Is this a bell or not?
I will show you four answers: 1. Only hit the floor. 2. "The bell is laughing." 3. "Outside it is dark, inside it is light." Or, "The bell is on the floor." These statements are only like this. They are good answers, but they are not complete answers. 4. Pick up the bell and ring it. This is a 100% complete answer. So it is possible to understand "like this" and yet not give the best answer. Language-route answers are good, but sometimes they are not complete. The Dharma-route answer is the complete answer. When a question is wide, the language-route and the Dharma-route become one. So to the question, "What is Buddha?", there are many complete answers. "Three pounds of flax," "Dry shit on a stick," "The wall is white, the rug is blue," etc. But a narrow question, the language-route and the Dharma-route are different. So to the bell question, there is only one complete answer. The same is true for the mouse kong-an. The language-route is not complete; you must find the Dharma-route, then you will come up with a good answer. This answer is only one point.
    You drew a triangle, circle, and square. If you are thinking, this is a demon's action. If you cut off all thinking, everything is the truth. So if you cut off all thinking, these figures are not necessary. Shit is Buddha, vomit is Buddha— they are the truth, they are just like this. If you keep a discriminating mind, why stop at three figures? More are possible, and the figures you could draw are endless. These are only devices for teaching Zen; they do not really exist. You must not be attached to form. You must finish your homework. This is very important. You must understand that a quarter is twenty-five cents.
    You poem is very good. But what does "my life is complete" mean? If you use "complete," you must take out "my life." If you use "my life," you must take out "complete." How can you hear "the sound of incense ash falling like thunder"? You wrote "KATZ" and "How much does it weigh?" I already asked you how much does it weighs. If you want to understand this weight, you need a scale without measurements.
    Here is a poem for you:
        The snowman Bodhidharma sweats and grows smaller, smaller.
        The sound of his heartbeat shatters heaven and hell.
        His eyebrows drop off, then his eyes, then his carrot nose.
        A little boy shouts, "Bodhidharma is dying!"
Sincerely yours,
S.S.
Seung Sahn (1927-2004),
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha:
The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn,
Edited by Stephen Mitchell, Grove Press, New York, 1976, pp. 196-199
229) Koan 85 of Zen Master Seung Sahn—
"Money to Spend":
Jin Jae Sunim persisted, "Only that? Not more?"
Zen Master Hyang Gok answered, "I have a lot of money
in my pocket. In heaven and on earth, coming or going,"
I am free to spend it."
  1. If you were Hyang Gok, how would you answer?
  2. Is Hyang Gok's answer correct or not?
  3. Hyang Gok said, "I have a lot of money in my pocket."
    What kind of money did Hyang Gok have?
Commentary:
Hyang Gok has a hole in his pocket, so he loses all his money.
Seung Sahn (1927-2004),
The Whole World Is A Single Flower
365 Kong-ans for Everyday Life,
Tuttle, Boston, 1992, p. 61
85 in Poetry & Literature
230) Calchas asks Achilles for support in Line 85 from Book I of Homer's Iliad
Through the prophetic power Apollo
Had given him, and he [Calchas] spoke out now:
"Achilles, beloved of Zeus, you want me to tell you
About the rage of Lord Apollo, the Arch-Destroyer.
And I will tell you. But you have to promise me and swear
You will support me and protect me in word and deed.
Homer, The Iliad, I.80-85 (circa 800 BC)
(translated by Stanley Lombardo)
Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis, IN, 1997, p. 3
231) "Odysseus honing his heart's sorrow" [Odysseus]
in Line 85 of Book 5 from Book 1 of Homer's Odyssey
Calypso knew him at sight.
The immortals have ways of recognizing each other,
Even those whose homes are in outlying districts.
But Hermes didn't find the great hero inside [the cave].
Odysseus was sitting on the shore,
As ever those days, honing his heart's sorrow,
Staring out to sea with hollow, salt-rimmed eyes.
Homer, The Odyssey, V.80-86 (circa 800 BC)
(translated by Stanley Lombardo)
Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis, IN, 2000, p. 72
232) Han-shan's Poem 85 of Collected Songs of Cold Mountain:
So many different people,
With hundreds of plans for seeking profit and fame.
In their hearts they covet the search for glory and honor;
In managing their affairs, they think only of wealth and rank.
Before their minds know the briefest moment of rest,
Off they go in a rush, like mist and smoke.
Family members— truly one close-knit group;
One single call, and one hundred will, "Yes, Yes," appear.
But before seventy years have passed;
The ice will melt and the tiles will be broken, cast away.
When you're dead, all things come to an end;
Who will go on as you heir?
When mud pellets are submerged in water,
Then you know they're neither intelligence nor smarts!
 Han-shan (fl. 627-649), Collected Songs of Cold Mountain,
Poem 85 ( Robert G. Henricks translation, 1990)
( Red Pine translation, 1990; Burton Watson translation, 1962)
233) Poem 85 of Li Pai: 200 Selected Poems
is titled "Standing on Chiao Shan Seeing the Lone Pine Rock":
From the heights of Chiao Shan I saw
how the Lone Pine Rock really seems
to stand in the cloud; how may
I get a beautiful rainbow
to connect up these two hill
tops? Now if the spirit
of Lone Pine loves me, let it
lift a hand and beckon me to come.
 Li Bai (701-762), Li Pai: 200 Selected Poems, Poem 85
translated by Rewi Alley, Joint Publishing Co., Hong Kong, 1980, p. 95
234) Poem 85 of The Poetry of Wang Wei:
Recent Clearing: An Evening View
A recent clearing: the plains and wilds are vast;
To the limits of sight there is no dust or dirt.
The citywall gate overlooks the ford;
Village trees adjoin the mouth of the creek.
White waters gleam beyond the fields,
And emerald peaks emerge behind the mountains.
In a farming month there are no idle men:
Families pour out to work the southern fields.
 Wang Wei (701-761), The Poetry of Wang Wei, Poem 85
translated by Pauline Yu,
Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1980, p. 174
235) Poem 85 of Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet
is titled "Jade Flower Palace":
On the bank of the winding gully where the wind of the pines is echoed long,
I find gray rats scurrying among heaps of broken tiles. There is no sign to tell
which prince's palace it was. That now stands in ruins under the sharp precipice.
In the damp, dark rooms, blue ghost fires flicker. Outside, by the abandoned road,
a melancholy stream pours downhill. From the million of leaves real music rises;
And the colors of autumn are just turning dreary. Even beautiful women are now
brown dirt under those mounds— Withal, much of their beauty was but powder
and rouge. Of the entourage of the princely chariot then, The only reminder now is
that sculptured stone horse. When unhappiness surges within me, I sit on a grassy
spot, I sing, I sob, I wipe my tears with my hands. On the never-ending road of
restless humanity. What matters who has how long to live?
 Tu Fu (712-770), Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet, Poem LXXXV
by William Hung, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1952, p. 114
236) Poem 86 from The Manyoshu:
Poem by Empress Iwanohime, thinking of the Emperor:
Instead of longing for you
    like this,
would that I could die,
pillowed in the crags
of a towering mountain.
The Manyoshu, Poem 86 (circa 750 AD)
(Ian Hideo Levy's translation of One Thousand Poems
Princeton University Press, NJ, 1981, p. 81) Japanese text
237) Poem 85 of Selected Poems of Po Chü-I is titled
"Taking Leave of the Flowering Trees I Planted on Eastern Slope":
Two years tarrying in this river town,
its plants, trees, birds, fish, all dear to me.
But where do I turn my eyes most often, most fondly?
To peach and damson planted on Eastern Slope, just starting to be fine.
 Po Chü-I (772-846), Selected Poems, Poem 85
translated by Burton Watson,
Columbia University Press, New York, 2000, p. 107
(translated by David Hinton)
238) Poem 85 of Selected Poems of Chia Tao is titled
"Seeing Off Ch'an Master Hui-Ya Returning to Jade Springs":
You've only gone as far
as the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers,
and have yet to travel
Tung-t'ing Lake.

Drinking water from a spring,
you watch the setting moon;
below the gorges,
hear the gibbons cry.

Rain and thunder
do not stop you teaching;
nearing the sea flow,
you chant sacred verses.

The evening dew has fallen
when you return to Ch'u;
the autumn stars are frosty
over Jade Springs.
 Chia Tao (779-843), When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains:
Selected Poems of Chia Tao, Poem 85
translated by Mike O'Connor,
Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2000, p. 105
239) Section 85 from The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
is titled "Graceful Things":
A slim, handsome young nobleman in a Court cloak. A pretty girl casually dressed
in a trouser-skirt, over which she wears only a loosely sewn coat... A letter written
on fine green paper is attached to a budding willow branch. A bearded basket, beautifully
dyed, is attached to a five-needled pine branch... An attractively designed cypress box.
Thin white braid. A cypress-thatched roof, neither too new nor too old, is beautifully
covered with iris. Below a green bamboo blind one catches sight of a curtain of state
whose bright, glossy material is decorated with a pattern of decaying wood. It is pretty
too when the ornamental curtain-cord is allowed o flutter in the breeze... One day by
the balustrade before a set of thin head-blinds I saw a pretty cat with a red collar and
a white name-tag. He looked very elegant as he walked along, pulling his anchor cord
and biting it... The young girls who carry the incense-burners during the Gosechi dances...
The green costumes worn by Chamberlains of the Sixth Rank when they are on night duty.
The dancers at the Special Festivals. The young girls who accompany the Gosechi dancers.
Sei Shonagon (965-c. 1017),
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, Section 85 (circa 994 AD)
Translated & Edited by Ivan Morris
Columbia University Press, NY, 1967, Vol. I, pp. 90-92)
240) Poem 85 of Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101)
is titled "I Thought I'd End My Days in a Hainan Village" (1100):
Written at Tide-flow Hall at Ch'eng-mai Stop
when the poet was about to take the boat for the mainland.
I thought I'd end my days in a Hainan village
But God sent Wu-yang to call back my soul.
Far, far, where sky lowers and eagles pass from sight:
A hairbreadth of green hill— the mainland there!
 [Notes: "Wu-yang"— A reference to the "Summons to the Soul",
a poem attributed to Sung Yü (3rd century B.C.), in which God orders the sorceress
Wu-yang to discover where the soul of Sung Yü's teacher, the exiled poet Ch'u Yüan,
has fled and summon it home again. By God, of course, Su means Emperor Hui-tsung,
who ascended the throne this year and was recalling him from exile.]
— translated by Burton Watson,
Su Tung-P'o: Selections from a Sung Dynasty Poet,
Columbia University Press, New York, 1965, p. 134
Expanded edition, Copper Canyon Press, 1994)
241) Verse 85 of Rubáiyát, of Omar Khayyam (1048-1122):
Then said a Second— "Ne'er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy,
And He that with his hand the Vessel made
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy."
 (translated by Edward Fitzgerald, London, 1st Ed. 1859, 2nd Ed. 1868)
242) Verse 85 of Saigyo's Mirror for the Moon:
The mind is a sky
Emptied of all darkness,
And its moon,
Limpid and perfect, moves
Closer to mountains in the West.
Saigyo (1118-1190), Mirror for the Moon,
(translated by William R. LaFleur, New Directions, NY, 1978, p. 45)
243) Verse 85 of Kenreimon-in Ukyo no Daibu's The Poetic Memoirs of Lady Daibu:
Well it becomes me that I wear
On my sleeve this iris root,
Which grew so deep within the bay,
Showing how deep was the affection
Of the one who plucked it thence!
 Kenreimon-in Ukyo no Daibu (1151-1232),
The Poetic Memoirs of Lady Daibu, Poem 55
(translated by Phillip Tudor Harries, Stanford University Press, 1980, p. 125)
244) Verse 85 of Rumi Daylight:
Whoever lives sweetly dies painfully:
whoever serves his body doesn't nourish his soul.
 Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), Mathnawi, I.2302
Rumi Daylight, Verse 85
(Edited by Camille & Kabir Helminski, 1994, p. 59)
245) The 85th Canto of Dante's Commedia is Canto 18 of Paradiso
where Dante is in the Fifth Heaven, the Sphere of Mars.
Dante sees the dazzling gaze of Beatrice.
His great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida
presents other spirits of the cross to Dante.
Ascent to the 6th Heaven, the Sphere of Jupiter.
The eagles form the words from Wisdom I.1:
"Love virtue, you who are judges on earth"
( Allen Mandelbaum translation, 1982, pp. 158-165, 373-376)
246) Dante tells Virgil that he's his master & guide
in the 85th line of the Inferno:
Tu se' lo mio maestro e 'l mio autore;
tu se' solo colui da cu' io tolsi
lo bello stilo che m'ha fatto onore. 		You are my master and my author, you—
the only one from whom my writing drew
the noble style for which I have been honored.
Inferno I.85-87 ( Allen Mandelbaum translation, 1984)
247) Beatrice reads Dante's mind and quietens
his agitations in the 85th line of Paradiso:
Ond'ella, che vedea me sì com'io,
a quietarmi l'animo commosso,
pria ch'io a dimandar, la bocca aprio, 		And she who read me as I read myself,
to quiet the commotion in my mind,
opened her lips before I opened mine
Paradiso I.85-87 ( Allen Mandelbaum translation, 1984, p. 7)
248) Poem 85 of A Quiet Room: The Poetry of Zen Master Jakushitsu
is titled "Added to the Plaque over the Entranceway at Kaiin Hermitage":
The Buddha lightly presses his finger
A great light radiates from the tip
The hermitage master attains this samadhi
From above the moon holds up the coral's branch
 Zen Master Jakushitsu (1290-1367),
A Quiet Room: The Poetry of Zen Master Jakushitsu, Poem 85
translated by Arthur Braverman,
Tuttle Publishing, Boston, 2000, p. 46 (Zen Poems)
249) Verse 86 of Hafiz: The Tongue of the Hidden:
Assay this dust as in a treasure mine:
Here's Life, here's Death, the fertile, the malign;
    Here are the lip and cup at last made one—
No more, alas, the drinker and the wine.
Hafiz (1320-1389), Hafiz: The Tongue of the Hidden, Verse 86
adaptation by Clarence K. Streit, Viking Press, NY, 1928
(Author on Time cover, March 27, 1950)
250) Line 85 of Passus I from Langland's Piers Plowman:
Teach me of no treasure, but tell me this one thing,
How I may save my soul, sacred as you are?"
"When all treasures are tried, Truth is the best." (I.83-85)
William Langland (1332-1400), Piers Plowman (1377)
(alliterative verse translation by E. Talbot Donaldson, Norton, NY, 1990, p.11)
251) Line 85 from the Pearl Poet's Pearl: "In awe within those wondrous heights"
The adubbemente of tho downes dere
Garten my goste a greffe foryete.
So frech flavores of frytes were,
As fode hit con me fayre refete.
Fowles ther flowen in fryth in fere,
Of flaumbande hwes, bothe smale and grete.
 		In awe within those wondrous heights,
My soul from suffering found cure,
And from the fragrances of fruits
That filled the air found new ardor.
Between each branch flew birds with mates,
Both big and small, and bright and fair.
Pearl (c. 1370-1400) Lines 85-90
(Edited by J.J. Anderson, Everyman, London, 1996, p. 4)
(This Pearl translation by Casey Finch, Complete Works of the Pearl Poet
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993, p. 49)
(Also Pearl translation: by Bill Stanton, another by Vernon Eller)
252) Line 85 from the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:
King Arthur would not eat until all had been served:
But King Arthur'd not eat until all had been served;
He was boisterous and bold, a bit boyish at times.
He liked to be lively; the less then he cared
To be seated too long or lie lounging about,
For his blood and his brain were too boisterous for that.
 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1375-1400) Lines 85-90
( Edited by J.J. Anderson, Everyman, London, 1996, p. 170)
(This translation by Casey Finch, Complete Works of the Pearl Poet
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993, p. 213)
253) Verse 86 of Songs of Kabir:
Serve your God, who has come into this temple of life!
Do not act the part of a madman, for the night is thickening fast.
He has awaited me for countless ages,
    for love of me He has lost His heart;
Yet I did not know the bliss that was so near to me,
    for my love was not yet awake.
But now, my Lover has made known to me
    the meaning of the note that struck my ear;
Now, my good fortune is come.
Kabir says: "Behold! how great is my good fortune!
    I have received the unending caress of my Beloved!"
 Kabir (1398-1448), Songs of Kabir, Verse LXXXVI
(Translated by Rabindranath Tagore, Macmillan, NY, 1916, pp. 132-133)
254) Chapter 85 of Wu Ch'eng-en The Journey to the West:
Mind Monkey envies Wood Mother;
The demon lord plots to devour Zen.
Still laughing, Pilgrim said, "And you've long forgotten the Heart Sutra
of the Crow's Nest Zen Master", especially these four lines:
    Seek not afar for Buddha on Spirit Mount;
    Mount Spirit lives only in your mind.
    There's in each man a Spirit Mount stupa;
    Beneath there the Great Art must be refined.
"Disciple," said Tripitaka, "you think I don't know this? According to these four
lines, the lesson of all scriptures concerns only the cultivation of the mind."
"Of course, that goes without saying," said Pilgrim. "For when the mind is pure,
it shines forth as a solitary lamp, and when the mind is secure, the entire
phenomenal world becomes clarified. The tiniest error, however, makes for the way
to slothfulness, and then you'll never succeed even in ten thousand years. Maintain
your vigilance with the utmost sincerity, and Thunderclap will be right before your
eyes. But when you afflict yourself like that with fears and troubled thoughts, then
the Great Way and, indeed, Thunderclap seem far away. Let's stop all these wild guesses.
Follow me." When the elder heard these words, his mind and spirit immediately cheered up
as all worries subsided. The four of them proceeded, and a few steps brought them into
the mountain. This was what met their eyes:
    The mountain's truly a good mountain.
    Look closely, it's mixed colors show!
    On top the clouds wander and drift;
    Tree shades are cool before the cliff...
    A thousand pines in the forest;
    A few bamboos on the summit...
    The deer climb o'er flowers to reach the peak...
    A soughing breeze and gurgling stream,
    Where oft you hear the coos of birds unseen...
    By the brook orchids mix with fine grasses.
    Strange rocks sharply etched;
    Hanging cliffs sheer and straight.
 Wu Ch'eng-en (1500-1582),
The Journey to the West or Hsi-yu chi (1582), Volume 4, Chapter 85
(translated by Anthony C. Yu, University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 156-173)
255) Good thoughts more important than good words
in Sonnet 85 of William Shakespeare:
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compiled,
Reserve thy character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'
To every hymn that able spirit affords,
In polished form of well-refined pen.
Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'
And to the most of praise add something more;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
Then others, for the breath of words respect,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.
 William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
Sonnets LXXXV, Commentary
256) 86th Haiku of Basho's Haiku (1678):
Five meters high
The heat haze is shimmering
Over the stone pedestal.
 Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Basho's Haiku, Vol. 1, Haiku 86
(translated by Toshiharu Oseko, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1990, p. 86)
257) There are 375 haikus in Haiku Master Buson.
85th Haiku of Yosa Buson:
Instead of with cherry blossoms
with peach blossoms it seems most intimate,
the small house!
 Yosa Buson (1716-1784), Haiku Master Buson
(translated by Yuki Sawa & Edith Marcombe Shiffert,
Heian International Publishing Co., San Francisco, 1978, p. 73)
258) Poem 85 of I Don't Bow to Buddhas:
Selected Poems of Yuan Mei
is titled "Day After Day"
Day after day strange peaks
greet me, passing.
I can't paint, can only sing them here.

But can an old man bear,
after gazing on the mountains,
to find his heart so full of stones?
 Yuan Mei (1716-1798),
I Don't Bow to Buddhas: Selected Poems of Yuan Mei, Poem 85
(translated by J.P. Seaton, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA, 1997, p. 90)
259) Poem 85 of The Moon in the Pines: Zen Haiku
is by a Japanese woman poet Sogetsu-Ni (d. 1804)
The sky clears
And the moon and the snow
Are one colour.
 Imaizumi Sogetsu-Ni (?-1804),
The Moon in the Pines: Zen Haiku, Poem 85
(translated by Jonathan Clements, Viking Studio, NY, 2000, p. 79)
260) "The powers of Nature here"
in Line 85 of Goethe's Faust:
Beschränkt mit diesem Bücherhauf,
den Würme nagen, Staub bedeckt,
Den bis ans hohe Gewölb hinauf
Ein angeraucht Papier umsteckt;
Mit Gläsern, Büchsen rings umstellt,
Mit Instrumenten vollgepfropft,
Urvüter Hausrat drein gestopft—
Das ist deine Welt! das heißt eine Welt!
 		I feel a youthful, holy, vital bliss
In every vein and fibre newly glowing.
Was it a God, who traced this sign,
With calm across my tumult stealing,
My troubled heart to joy unsealing,
With impulse, mystic and divine,
The powers of Nature here, around
    my path, revealing?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832),
Faust, Scene I: Night (Faust monologue)
Verse translation by Bayard Taylor (1870), Lines 79-85
Modern Library, New York, 1950, p. 17 (German, English)
261) Poem 85 of Goethe, the Lyrist: 100 Poems
"Sprüche #9":
Wenn ein Edler gegen dich fehlt,
So tu, als hättest du's nicht gezählt;
Er wird es in sein Schuldbuch schreiben
Und dis nicht lange im Debet bleiben. 		Epigrams & Sayings #9:
When noble man have done you ill,
Then act as though it counted nil.
They'll book it as their debt yet
And soon will pay you back the debt.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), "Sprühe #9"
Goethe, the Lyrist: 100 Poems, (translated by Edwin H. Zeydel
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 1955, pp. 162-163)
262) Poem 85 of Goethe's Selected Poems
Gingo Biloba
Dieses Baums Blatt, der von Osten
Meinem Garten anvertraut,
Gibt geheimen Sinn zu kosten,
Wie's den Wissenden erbaut.

Ist es Ein lebendig Wesen,
Das sich in sich selbst getrennt?
Sind es zwei, die sich erlesen,
Dass man sie als eines kennt.

Solche Frage zu erwidern,
Fand ich wohl den rechten Sinn.
Fühlst du nicht in meinen Liedern,
Dass ich Eins und doppelt bin. 		Ginkgo Biloba
This tree's leaf that from the East
To my garden's been entrusted
Holds a secret sense, and grist
To a man intent on knowledge.

Is it one, this thing alive,
By and in itself divided,
Or two beings who connive
That as one the world shall see them?

Fitly now I can reveal
What the pondered question taught me;
In my songs do you not feel
That at once I'm one and double?

Ginkgo Leaf

Photo and Poem

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832),
"Gingo Biloba" (1815) (translated by Michael Hamburger)
Selected Poems, (Edited by Christopher Middleton)
Suhrkamp/Insel Publishers, Boston, 1983, pp. 208-209)
263) "Good south wind" in Plate 85 of William Blake's
Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (1804):
Became a Space & an Allegory around the Winding Worm
They named it Cannan & built for it a tender Moon
Los smild with joy thinking on Enitharmon & he brought
Reuben from his twelvefold wandrings & led him into it
Planting the Seeds of the Twelve Tribes & Moses & David
And gave a Time & Revolution to the Space Six Thousand Years
He called it Divine Analogy, for in Beulah the Feminine
Emanations Create Space. the Masculine Create Time, & plant
The Seeds of beauty in the Space: listening to their lamentation
 William Blake (1757-1827),
The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake,
"Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion", Plate #85, Lines 1-9
(Edited by David V. Erdman, University of California, Berkeley, 1982, p. 243)
264) Poem 85 of The Zen Poems of Ryokan:
I left my family, my own home, to seek wisdom far abroad.
Just a gown and a bowl with me, I wandered many a spring.
Today, I have returned, to visit friends of my past days.
Alas, many of them sleep under mossy stones but as names.
 Ryokan (1758-1831), The Zen Poems of Ryokan, Poem 85
translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa,
Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 65
(Poet-Seers, Zen Poems)
265) 86th Haiku of Issa's Haiku:
Spring rain—
sparrows, open-mouthed,
beak at my lunch.
 Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827),
The Dumpling Field: Poems of Issa, Haiku 86
(translated by Lucien Stryk, Swallow Press, Athens, Ohio, 1991, p. 26)
266) "Dizzy raptures" in 85th Line of William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey:
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.— That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
 William Wordsworth (1770-1850),
The Poetic Works of Wordsworth,
"Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting
the banks of the Wye during a tour. July 13, 1798", Lines 82-102
(Edited by Paul D. Sheats, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1982, pp. 91-93)
267) "Good south wind" in 85th Line of Samuel T. Coleridge's
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798):
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo!
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834),
The Complete Poems, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Lines 85-88
(Edited by William Keach, Penguin Books, NY, 1997, p. 49)
268) Novalis's The Novices of Sais (1799) is a Romantic meld of poetry,
philosophy, and transcendental journey. Paul Klee's drawings were
inspired by visionary exploration of the inner life of modern mankind.
Page 85 describes how poets share their spiritual vision of nature:
"Everything divine has a history; can it be that nature, the one totality by
which man can measure himself, should not be bound together in a history,
or— and this is the same thing— that it should have no spirit?
Nature would not be nature if it had no spirit, it would not be the unique
counterpart to mankind, not the indispensable answer to this mysterious
question, or the question to this never-ending answer."
    "Only the poets have felt what nature can be to mankind,"
began a handsome youth, "and in this connection it can once more be said
that the humanity in them is in the most perfect diffusion, and that
consequently through their mirrored clarity and mobility each impression
is communicated on all sides in its infinite variations. They find everything
in nature. To them alone its soul remains no stranger, and not in vain do they
seek all the ecstasies of the golden age in its presence. For them nature has
all the variety of an infinite soul, and more than the cleverest, most alive
of men, it astounds us with ingenious turns and [fancies, with correspondences
and deviations, with grandiose ideas and trifling whimsies.]
 Novalis (1772-1801), The Novices of Sais,
(translated by Ralph Manheim, Illustrated by Paul Klee)
Archipelago Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2005, page 85
269) "Snow-clad offspring of the sun" in 85th Line of George Byron's
The Prisoner of Chillon (1816):
The snow-clad offspring of the sun:
And thus he was as pure and bright,
And in his natural spirit gay,
With tears for nought but others' ills,
And then they flow'd like mountain rills,
Unless he could assuage the woe
Which he abhorr'd to view below.
 Lord George Byron (1788-1824),
The Complete Poetical Works Vol. IV,
"The Prisoner of Chillon", Lines 85-91
(Edited by Jerome J. McGann, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, p. 7)
270) "Notes flow in such a crystal stream"
in 85th Line of Percy Bysshe Shelley's To a Skylark (1816):
    Waking or asleep,
        Thou of death must deem
    Things more true and deep
        Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

    We look before and after,
        And pine for what is not:
    Our sincerest laughter
        With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822),
The Major Works,
"To a Skylark", Lines 81-90
(Edited by Zachary Leader & Michael O'Neill)
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2003, pp. 465-466
271) "Freshness of the space of heaven above"
in 85th Line of John Keats's Endymion, Book I (1816):
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue
 John Keats (1795-1821),
The Complete Poems, Second Edition
"Endymion", Book I, Lines 85-88
(Edited by John Barnard, Penguin Books, NY, 1976, p. 109)
(Note: The 1st line is "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:")
272) "A hundred winters old" in 85th Line of Alfred Tennyson's
The Holy Grail (1869):
A man wellnigh a hundred winters old,
Spake often with her of the Holy Grail,
A legend handed down through five or six,
And each of these a hundred winters old,
From our Lord's time. And when King Arthur made
His Table Round, and all men's hearts became
Clean for a season, surely he had thought
That now the Holy Grail would come again;
 Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892),
Poems of Tennyson, "The Holy Grail", Lines 85-92
Part 3 of Idylls of the King (1869)
(Edited by Jerome H. Buckley, Riverside Press, Cambridge, MA, 1958, p. 390)
273) Chapter 85 of Melville's Moby-Dick (1851):
That for six thousand years- and no one knows how many millions of ages before—
the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying
the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some
centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale,
watching these sprinklings and spoutings— that all this should be, and yet, that down to
this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth
day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are,
after all, really water, or nothing but vapor— this is surely a noteworthy thing...
But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude,
the Sperm Whale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and what is still
more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone;
and this is on the top of his head... If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale
will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings.
Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then
whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute....
In man, breathing is incessantly going on- one breath only serving for two or three pulsations;
so that whatever other business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die
he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time... My hypothesis
is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am
impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale;
I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found
on soundings, or near shores; all other whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound.
And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho,
Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act
of thinking deep thoughts... And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster,
to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a
canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor— as you will
sometimes see it— glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.
Herman Melville (1819-1891),
Moby-Dick, Chapter 85: The Fountain
274) Anger & tears & books in Letter 85 of Emily Dickinson [age 21]:
    Will you be kind to me, Susie? I am naughty and cross, this morning,
and nobody loves me here; nor would you love me, if you should see me frown,
and hear how loud the door bangs whenever I go through; and yet it is'nt anger—
I dont believe it is, for when nobody sees, I brush away big tears with the corner
of my apron, and then go working on— bitter tears, Susie— so hot that they
burn my cheeks, and almost schorch my eyeballs, but you have wept much,
and you know they are less of anger than sorrow... Your precious letter, Susie,
it sits here, now, and smiles so kindly at me, and gives me such sweet thoughts
of the dear writer. When you come home, darling, I shant have your letters,
shall I, but I shall have yourself, which is more— Oh more, and better, than I can
even think! I sit here with my little whip, cracking the time away, till not an hour
is left of it— then you are here! and Joy is here— joy now and forevermore!...
    I have just read three little books, not great, not thrilling— but sweet
and true. "The Light in the Valley", "Only"; and "A House upon a Rock"— I know
you would love them all— yet they dont bewitch me any. There are no walks in
the wood— no low and earnest voices, no moonlight, nor stolen love, but pure
little lives, loving God, and their parents, and obeying the laws of the land;
yet read, if you meet them, Susie, for they will do one good...
    Dear Susie, you were so happy when you wrote to me last— I am so glad,
and you will be happy now, for all my sadness, wont you? I cant forgive me ever,
if I have made you sad, or dimmed your eye for me. I write from the Land of Violets,
and from the Land of Spring, and it would ill become me to carry you nought but
sorrows. I remember you, Susie, always— I keep you ever here, and when you
are gone, then I'm gone— and we're 'neath one willow tree. I can only thank
"the Father" for giving me such as you, I can only pray unceasingly, that he will
bless my Loved One, and bring her back to me, to "go no more out forever."
"Herein is Love." But that was Heaven— this is but Earth, yet Earth so like to heaven,
that I would hesitate, should the true one call away.
                                                                Dear Susie— adieu!
                                                                                            Emilie
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Letter 85 (to her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson, 5 April 1852)
The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Volume I (Biography)
(edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Harvard University Press, 1955, pp. 193-195)
275) 85th Poem of Emily Dickinson:
"They have not chosen me," he said,
"But I have chosen them!"
Brave— Broken hearted statement—
Uttered in Bethlehem!

I could not have told it,
But since Jesus dared—
Sovereign! Know a Daisy
They dishonor shared!
 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Poem 85 (circa 1859)
(edited by Thomas H. Johnson, 1955, pp. 43-44)
276) 86th New Poem of Emily Dickinson:
My family of Apparitions
is select, though dim.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
(Letter 445)
New Poems of Emily Dickinson
(edited by William H. Shurr, University of North Carolin Press, 1993, p. 26)
277) "Not words, not music or rhyme" in Line 85 of Walt Whitman's
poem Song of Myself (1855):
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abuse itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.
 Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Song of Myself, Lines 82-86
A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, Vol. I, Poems, 1855-1856
(Edited by Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett, Arthur Golden, William White
New York University Press, 1980, p. 5)
278) Grass, waters, animals, mountains, trees in Line 85
of Walt Whitman's Passage to India (1871):
O, vast Rondure, swimming in space!
Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty!
Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual darkness;
Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, above;
Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees;
With inscrutable purpose— some hidden, prophetic intention;
Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee.?
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Passage to India Section 5, Lines 81-87
A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, Vol. III, Poems, 1870-1891
(Edited by Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett, Arthur Golden, William White
New York University Press, 1980, p. 567)
279)
85th Verse in Tagore's Gitanjali:
When the warriors came out first from their master's hall,
where had they hid their power?
Where were their armour and their arms?
They looked poor and helpless, and the arrows were showered
upon them on the day they came out from their master's hall.
When the warriors marched back again to their master's hall
where did they hide their power?
They had dropped the sword and dropped the bow and the arrow;
peace was on their foreheads, and they had left the fruits
of their life behind them on the day they marched back
again to their master's hall.
 Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), Verse 85

Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941)

280) Page 86 in A. E.'s Song and its Fountains:
I think all true poetry was conceived on the Mount of Transfiguration
and there is revelation in it and the mingling of heaven and earth.
The Mount is a symbol for that peak of soul when, gone inward into itself,
it draws nigh to its own divine root, and memory and imagination are shot
through and through with the radiance of another nature. It is not alone
poetry definitely mystical which is so conceived. The romantic imagination,
equally with the mystical, released from the clog of our slower, more static
nature, blossoms into its own ideal. There the imagination might move with
the wizard airy glow of the Ancient Mariner or Kubla Khan,
or have the stained glass richness of the Eve of St. Agnes, or
the heart-choking sweetness of Shelley's music, or the phantom beauty
of Usheen in Tirnanoge, or build itself a Palace of Art with
exquisite enamelings on its cloud-built chambers.

A. E. (George William Russell) (1867-1935)
Song and its Fountains, Macmillan, New York (1932), p. 86
(New Edition, Larson Publications, 1991)
[Note: Typesetting on page 86 is from the 1932 edition.]
281) There are 88 poems in Rilke's Book of Images [1906]
Poem 85 is the 8th poem in
"From a Stormy Night: Eight Leaves with a Title Leaf":
In solchen Nächten wächst mein Schwesterlein,
das vor mir war und vor mir starb, ganz klein.
Viel solche Nächte waren schon seither:
Sie muss schon schön sein. Bald wird irgendwer
      sie frein. 		Nights like these, my little sister grows,
who was here and died before me, so small.
Many such nights have passed since then.
She must be beautiful by now. Soon someone
      will wed her.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926),
Book of Images, Poem 85
(translated by Edward Snow), North Point Press, New York, 1991, pp. 230-231)
282) Line 85 of Rilke's Duino Elegies V [1923]
on "into that empty too-much":
Und plötzlich in diesem mühsamen Nirgends, plötzlich
die unsägliche Stelle, wo sich das reine Zuwenig
unbegreiflich verwandelt—, umspringt
in jenes leere Zuviel.
Wo die vielstellige Rechnung
zahlenlos aufgeht. 		And suddenly in this laborious nowhere, suddenly
the inexpressible spot where the pure too-little
incomprehensibly changes, suddenly turns
into that empty too-much.
Where the multi-digited sum
works out without figures.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926),
Duino Elegies, V.82-87
(translated by Patrick Bridgwater),
Menard Press, London, 1999, pp. 40-41)
(Other translations: Edward Snow; Robert Hunter; David Lisle Crane.)
283) 85th Page in Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha (1922):
    Later, when the sun was beginning to set, they sat on
a tree trunk by the river and Siddhartha told him about his
origin and his life and how he had seen him today after
that hour of despair. The story lasted late into the night.
Vasudeva listened with great attention; he heard all
about his origin and childhood, about his studies, his seekings,
his pleasures and needs. It was one of the ferryman's greatest
virtues that, like few people, he knew how to listen... Siddhartha
felt how wonderful it was to have such a listener who could be
absorbed in another person's life, his strivings, his sorrows...
    When Siddhartha had finished and there was a long
pause, Vasudeva said: "It is as I thought; the river has spoken
to you. It is friendly towards you, too; it speaks to you.
That is good, very good. Stay with me, Siddhartha, my friend."
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), Siddhartha, (trans. Hilda Rosner)
New Directions, New York (1951), p. 85
284) 85th Page in James Joyce's Ulysses, (13 samples):
    He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Re- (85.04)
mind you of a mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College (85.05)
sports today I see. He eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate (85.06)
of college park: cyclist doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn (85.07)
bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. Then the (85.08)
spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Some- (85.09)
thing to catch the eye. (85.10)
    Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket (85.14)
weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. (85.15)
Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the (85.20)
stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. (85.21)
    Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the (85.22)
gentle tepid stream. This is my body. (85.23)
James Joyce (1882-1941), Ulysses, (1st edition, 1922)
Random House, New York (1946), p. 85
285) 85th Page lines in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, (15 samples):
in the bottol of the river and all his crewsers stock locked in the (85.01)
burral of the seas!) who, when within the black of your toenail, (85.02)
sir, of being mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs, (85.03)
when the hyougono heckler with the Peter the Painter wanted (85.05)
to hole him, was consistently practising the first of the primary (85.06)
and imprescriptible liberties of the pacific subject by circulating (85.07)
buggy and bike, to walk, Wellington Park road, with the curb (85.10)
Butt's, most easterly (but all goes west!) of blackpool bridges, as (85.15)
being praisegood thankfully for the wrathbereaved ringdove and (85.17)
pleased, which he was, at having other people's weather. (85.19)
But to return to the atlantic and Phenitia Proper. As if that (85.20)
on the calends of Mars, under an incompatibly framed indictment (85.27)
of both the counts (from each equinoxious points of view, the one (85.28)
on the field. Oyeh! Oyeh! When the prisoner, soaked in methyl- (85.31)
corkscrew trowswers, all out of the true (as he had purposely torn (85.35)
James Joyce (1882-1941), Finnegans Wake, (1939), p. 85
286) There are 213 poems in Wallace Stevens, The Palm at the End of the Mind.
Poem 86 is titled "A Postcard from the Volcano":
Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became

A part of what it is ... Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,

Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,

A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.
 Wallace Stevens (1879-1955),
The Palm at the End of the Mind, Poem 86
Edited by Holly Stevens, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1971, p. 127
287) There are 94 poems in Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous.
Poem 86 is titled "Farewell Without a Guitar" (1954):
Spring's bright paradise has come to this.
Now the thousand-leved green falls to the ground.
Farewell, my days.

The thousand-leaved red
Comes to this thunder of light
As its autumnal terminal—

A Spanish storm,
A wide, still Aragonese,
In which the horse walks home without a rider,

Head down. the reflections and repetitions,
The blows and buffets of fresh senses
Of the rider that was,

Are a final construction,
Like glass and sun, of male reality
And of that other and her desire.
 Wallace Stevens (1879-1955),
Opus Posthumous, Poem 86
Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1989, p. 125
288) Chapter 85 of Ezra Pound's Cantos (selections):
LING
Our dynasty came in because of a great sensibility.
All there by the time of Y Yin
All roots by the time of Y Yin.
Galileo index'd 1616,...
Our science is from the watching of shadows;...
        The sun under it all:
From T'ang's time until now)
That you lean 'gainst the tree of heaven,
        and know Ygdrasail...
But if you will follow this process
                       
not a lot of signs, but the one sign
        etcetera...
Dante, out of St Victor (Richardus),
        Erigena with greek tags in his verses.
Not serendipity
but to spread
                       
                                tê       thru the people.
fermentum et germina,
        study with the mind of a grandson
        and watch the time like a hawk...
You will go a long way without slipping,
        without slopping over...
that had from Heou Tsi under Shun
by the three streams, the three rivers...
Heaven's process is quite coherent
and its main points perfectly clear...
The arrow has not two points...
We flop if we cannot maintain the awareness
Diuturna cogites
respect the awareness and
                train the fit men...
Awareness restful & fake is fatiguing...
The 5 laws have root in an awareness...
"One of those days", said Brancusi,
        "when I would not have given
"15 minutes of my time
        for anything under heaven."
Ezra Pound (1885-1972), The Cantos (1-95), Canto 85
New Directions, NY, 1956, pp. 3-19
(Section: Rock-Drill 85-95 De Los Cantares)
289) Poem 85 of e. e. cummings's 95 Poems (1958):
here pasture ends—
this girl and boy
who're littler than
(day disappears)

their heartbeats dare
some upward world
of each more most
prodigious Selves

both now alive
creatures(bright if
by shadowy
if)swallowing

is everywhere
beginningless
a Magic of
green solitude

(go marvels come)
as littler much
than littlest they
adventure(wish

by terror)steep
not guessable
each infinite
Oblivions
 found a by lost
child and a(float
through sleeping firsts
of wonder)child

unbreathingly
share(huge Perhaps
by hugest)dooms
of miracle

drift killed swim born
a dream and(through
stillness beyond
conceiving)dream

until No least
leaf almost stirs
as never(in
againless depths

of silence)and
forever touch
or until she
and he become

(on tiptoe at
the very quick
of nowhere)we
—While one thrush sings
e. e. cummings (1894-1962),
95 Poems (Norton, 1958), "Poem 85"
e. e. cummings, Complete Poems: 1913-1962,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, NY, 1968, pp. 757-758
290) Page 85 in William Carlos Williams' Paterson (1958):
Invent (if you can) discover or
nothing is clear— will surmount
the drumming in your head. There will be
nothing clear, nothing clear      .

He fled pursued by the roar.

Seventy-five of the world's leading scholars, poets
and philosophers gathered at Princeton last week     .      .      .

Her belly       .       her belly is like
a cloud       .       a cloud
                                  at evening      .

His mind would reawaken:

— the descent follows the ascent— to wisdom
as to despair...
to have known the clean air     .

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), Paterson (1958)
Edited by Christopher MacGowan
New Directions, NY, 1992, p. 85
(Published in Book II, Section 3, 1948)
291) Sonnet 86 in Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets (1960)
O Southern Cross, O clover of fragrant phosphorous:
it entered your body today with four holy kisses,
it traveled across the shadows and across my hat,
and the moon went circling through the cold.

Then— with my love, with my dearest— diamonds
of blue frost, calm of the sky, mirror:
you appeared, and the night filled
with your trembling cellars of wine.

O throbbing silver of a pure polished fish,
green cross, parsley of the radiant shadows,
firefly condemned to the wholeness of the sky:

rest on me, let us close your eyes, and mine.
For one moment, sleep with the human night.
Light your four-sided constellation in me.
Pablo Neruda
(1904-1973)
Love Sonnet LXXXVI, 100 Love Sonnets: Cien Sonetos de Amor, Sonnet LXXXV
Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1960 (trans. Stephen Tapscott, 1986, p. 183)
292) There are 116 sections in Louis Zukofsky's "Catullus" (1969)
from his Complete Short Poetry (1991)
Section 85:
O th'hate I move love. Quarry it fact I am, for that's so re queries.
Nescience, say th' fiery scent I owe whets crookeder.
 Louis Zukofsky (1904-1978)
"So That Even a Lover" in Some Time (1940-1956)
Complete Short Poetry (1991), p. 310
293) There are 125 lines in Section VIII of Kenneth Rexroth's
"On Flower Wreath Hill" from The Morning Star (1979).
Line 85: "Summer, unborn flowers sleep" (lines 82-91):
Winter, the flowers sleep on
The branches. Spring, they awake
And open to probing bees.
Summer, unborn flowers sleep
In the young seeds ripening
In the fruit. The mountain pool
Is invisible in the
Glowing mist. But the mist-drowned
Moon overhead is visible
Drowned in the invisible water.
Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982)
The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth
"On Flower Wreath Hill" VIII.82-91
Edited by Sam Hamill & Bradford Morrow
Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA, 2003, p. 750
294) There are 130 short poems in Kathleen Raine's On a Deserted Shore (1973):
Poem 85 is about memories of beloved:
From your grave-side
All ways lead away,
And time is long, my love,
And memories fade,
Old hearts grow cold:
Must I too break faith
With joy?
 Kathleen Raine (1908-2003),
On a Deserted Shore, Poem #85
Dolmen Press, London, UK, 1973
295) There are 87 poems in Karl Shapiro's Love & War, Art & God (1984).
Poem 85 titled "The Synagogue" has 11 6-lines stanzas
Stanzas 1, 2, 9, 11 are cited below:
The synagogue dispirits the deep street,
Shadows the face of the pedestrian,
It is the adumbration of the Wall,
The stone survival that laments itself,
Our old entelechy of stubborn God,
Our calendar that marks a separate race.

The swift cathedral palpitates the blood,
The soul moves upward like a wing to meet
The pinnacles of saints. There flocks of thanks
In nooks of holy tracery arrive
And rested take their message in mid-air
Sphere after sphere into the papal heaven.

Our wine is wine, our bread is harvest bread
That feeds the body and is not the body.
Our blessing is to wine but not the blood
Nor to sangreal the sacred dish. We bless
The whiteness of the dish and bless the water
And are not anthropaphagous to him.

We live by virtue of philosophy,
Past love, and have our devious reward.
For faith he gave us land and took the land,
Thinking us exiles of all humankind.
Our name is yet the identity of God
That storms the falling altar of the world.
Karl Shapiro (1913-2000)
Love & War, Art & God, Poem 85 "The Synagogue"
Stuart Wright, Winston, Salem, NC, 1984, pp. 148-149
(Richard Slotkin, The Contextual Symbol: Karl Shapiro's Image of "The Jew",
American Quarterly 1966)
296) Poem 85 in Thomas Merton's Cables to the Ace (1968):
The flash of falling metals. The shower of parts, cameras, guns of experience in
the waste heaven of deadly rays. Cataclysm of designs. Out of the meteor sky cascades
of efficient rage of out team. Down comes another blazing and dissolute unit melting
in mid-air over a fortunate suburb. A perishing computer blazes down into a figure
of fire and steam. We live under the rain of stainless leaders. They strike
themselves out like matches and fizz for our conjecture in the streets of Taurus.
Gone is another tested explorer. Gone is another brilliant intuition of an engineer.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Cables to the Ace, New Directions, NY, 1968, pp. 58-59
297)
Chapter 85 in Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels (1965):
In the morning Penny gets up before anyone else and
goes out to buy bacon and eggs and orange juice
and makes a big breakfast for everybody—
I begin to like her—...
    Cody is at his best but I've got to make him understand,
as he goes "And so it's true as you say that God is us"—
poor Cody— "right here now, etcet, we dont have
to run to God because we're already there...
    I keep saying words and really mean it—
I'm trying to get Cody to shut up so I can say "God is words—"...
    "It's all one essential light beyond
which there can be no further division,"
I essay, and here to add: "Words."
    "Jesus Christ comes down and his Karma is to know that he is
the Son of God assigned to die for the sake of the eternal safety of mankind—"
    "Of all sensing beings."
    "No— not ants. Knowing it, he does it, dies on the Cross.
That was his Karma as Jesus.— Dig what that means."
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
Desolation Angel: A Novel, Coward-McCann, NY, 1965, Ch. 85, pp. 152-156
298) There are 102 poems in Denise Levertov's Sands of the Well (1996).
Poem 85 is titled "Hymns to the Darkness":
Beauty growls from the fertile dark
Don't disturb
the glow. Shadows
are not contrivances devised
for your confusion. They grow
in subtle simplicity from the root,
silence.

        And words put forth
before there's time to hesitate about
their strangeness, are swaying bridges
(quick! You're across) to further
dark illumination,
lovely tarnish of old silver,
bronze long-buried.

        •

Alders crowd to the pool's edge.
From roots and bark seeps down
their dark spirit,
a gift to the water that assuages
their thirst. It dyes
the pool to a blacker depth,
a clarity
deeper and less apparent.

        •

Imagine the down of black swans.
Hidden beneath the smooth layers
of black breast-feathers, preened by red beaks.
That's the tender dark of certain nights
in summer, when the moon's away,
stars invisible over the moist
low roof of fog.
How good it would be to spend such a night
wholly attentive to its obscurity,
without thought of history, of words like
Dark Ages, Enlightment, or especially
Contemporary, the shameful news each day.
Wholly present to the beneficent
swansdown grace of a single night,
unlit by even a candle.
 Denise Levertov (1926-1997),
Sands of the Well, "Hymns to the Darkness"
New Directions, New York, 1996, pp. 102-103)
299) Allen Ginsberg's HOWL (1956) contains 112 lines.
Line 1:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
Line 85:
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch
      whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch
      whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch
      whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen!
      Moloch whose name is the Mind!
 Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997),
Howl and Other Poems, City Lights Books, 1956, p. 22
300) Page 85 in Robert Creeley's So There: Poems 1976-83
is the poem "Later", the last entry in "HELLO:
A Journal Feb. 29-May 3, 1976":
LATER
It feels things
are muddled again
when I wanted
my head straight—

in this empty place,
people sleeping, light
from another person
reading lets me see.

That's talking about it.
This is— this is
where I've been before
and now don't want to go back to.

No blaming anyone,
nothing I can't do,
nowhere to be happy
but where I am.

Plans— the next
six months
all arranged.

You can see her face,
hear her voice,
hope it's happy.
 Robert Creeley (1926-2005),
So There: Poems 1976-83, New Directions, NY, 1998, p. 85
301) There are 96 poems in W. S. Merwin's
Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment
Poem 85 is titled "SOUTH":
                                                for Ralph Hilt
To the south in the beginning of evening a dog
barks at his echo among mountains
beyond bare walnut trees tiles are still climbing old roofs
lines of women with long burdens the colors
of dried darkening blood
each line straight into mountains
colder already all north faces
turning into their shadows
beyond them sea
through day and night to the last white mountains
an end a wise man fire
other stars the left hand
W. S. Merwin (born September 30, 1927),
Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment, Atheneum, NY, 1973, p. 101
302) There are 92 poems in W. S. Merwin's The Carrier of Ladders
Poem 85 is titled "The Web":
So it's mine
this leg of a thin gray travelling animal
caught in the web again
tearing
in the stocking of blood

the old scars waking opening
in the form of a web

the seamless fabric itself bleeding
where it clings

and all this time dark wings
cries
cries flying over at a great height

o web

over the sand you are woven
over the water you are woven
over the snow you are woven
over the grass you are woven
over the mountains you are woven
over the heads of the lambs you are woven
over the fish you are woven
over the the faces you are woven
over the clouds you are woven
over the itself you are woven

the tears glint on you like dew
the blood is spreading wherever you have held me
the days and the nights
keep their distance
without a sound

but I remember also the ringing spaces
when I have crossed you like a hand on a harp
and even now
in the echoless sky the birds pursue our music

hoping to hear it again
W. S. Merwin (born September 30, 1927),
The Carrier of Ladders, Atheneum, NY, 1970, p. 129
303) There are 101 poems in W. S. Merwin's Present Company
Poem 85 is titled "To Finding Again":
Everything else must have changed
must be different
by the time you appear
more than ever the same

taking me by surprise
in my difference
my age
long after I had come
to the end
of believing in you
to the end of hope

which was not even
the first of the changes

when I imagined
that I was forgetting you
you did not even need memory
to remain there
letting the years vanish
the miles depart

nothing surprising in that

even longing
does not need memory
to know what to reach for

and nothing surprises you
who were always there
wherever it was

beyond belief
W. S. Merwin (born September 30, 1927),
Present Company "To Finding Again,
Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA, 2005, pp. 114-115
304) Poem 86 of The Crane's Bill:
Who said the sea's concave,
Mountains convex?
Why, I swallow them whole—
The boundless sky!
— Heishin (1287-1369)
Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane's Bill
(translated by Lucien Stryk & Takashi Ikemoto, Anchor Books, NY, 1973, p. 54)
305) There are 95 short poems in Kenneth Koch's "On Aesthetics"
Poem 85 is titled "Aesthetics of Late":
Light falls on the fountains
When they are off.
Kenneth Koch (1925-2002), "On Aesthetics"
from One Train: Poems, Random House, NY, 1994, p. 72
Interview by Anne Waldman; Interview by David Kennedy; NY Times Obituary (7-7-2002)
306) Gary Snyder's poem "The Mountain Spirit" (1996)
contains 196 lines. "A meteor" appears in Line 85:
                    A meteor swift and streaking
    like a tossed white pebble
            arcing down the sky—

the Mountain Spirit stands there.
 Gary Snyder (b. May 8, 1930),
Mountains and Rivers Without End
"The Mountain Spirit", Lines 85-88
New Directions, New York, 1996, p. 143
307) Poem 85 of Michael McClure's Ghost Tantras:
DRAHN REEZER GRANN-LEEEP MOWR
stooon grahh drahhr toomowr thown yeee
bleesh nathoor coop stile peehn blash n'rooor
gahhr grahh gahoooor roooh grahhr
the brown silver grass-leaves in trillions— rustle
and move as fur of a vast breerth.
— The green spruce are hugging
ascending to a laughing leap.
Time & space whistle together where we
are non-mammalian
and our gahroon molecular voices yearn.
Brah theee ah hoool y'rahh thahrr! Thoo!
Michael McClure (born Oct. 20, 1932),
Ghost Tantras, City Lights Books, 1967, p. 92)
308) "[The poem] isn't even the first page of the world." in Line 85
of Mary Oliver's's poem "Flare" (Lines 84-91):
The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.
 Mary Oliver (born 1935), The Leaf and the Cloud, "Flare", Section 7
Da Capo Press, 2000, p. 5
309) There are 89 poems in Ted Kooser's Sure Signs (1980):
Poem 85 is titled "Year's End":
Now the seasons are closing their files
on each of us, the heavy drawers
full of certificates rolling back
into the tree trunks, a few old papers
flocking away. Someone we loved
has fallen from our thoughts,
making a little, glittering splash
like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red feather on the wind.
 Ted Kooser (born 1939),
Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems, Poem #85
University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1980, p. 89
310) There are 100 poems in Janet Gray's A Hundred Flowers (1993).
Poem 85:
For a moment a swirl
of sky around the one
bright face. Yes:
by climbing, by singing
you can reach
up. Fill
a space that the heavens
empty—
pull back from but
press
like society
or mud. Which are
omitted here. You oh my dear
& your Sunday best.
 Janet Gray
A Hundred Flowers, Poem LXXXV
Thumbscrew Press, San Francisco, 1993, p. 85
85 in Numerology
311) Numerology: words whose letters add up to 85

GOLDEN SEPHIROTH: (7 + 6 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 5) + (1+5+7+8+9+9+6+2+8) = 30 + 55 = 85

INFINITE SPHERE:
(9 + 5 + 6 + 9 + 5 + 9 + 2 + 5) + (1 + 7 + 8 + 5 + 9 + 5) = 50 + 35 = 85

NOVEMBER THIRTEEN:
(5 + 6 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 2 + 5 + 9) + (2 + 8 + 9 + 9 + 2 + 5 + 5 + 5) = 40 + 45 = 84

NUMBER NOURISHMENT: (5+3+4+2+5+9) + (5+6+3+9+9+1+8+4+5+5+2) = 28 + 57 = 85

ONE HUNDRED EIGHT:
(6+7+1) + (8+3+5+4+9+5+4) + (5+9+7+8+2) = 16 + 38 + 31 = 85

ORANGE POMEGRANATE:
(6 + 9 + 1 + 5 + 7 + 5) + (7 + 6 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 9 + 1 + 5 +1 + 2 + 5) = 33 + 52 = 85

PHILOSOPHY KING:
(7 + 8 + 9 + 3 + 6 + 1 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 7) + (2 + 9 + 5 + 7) = 62 + 23 = 85

PROTEINS RESEARCH:
(7 + 9 + 6 + 2 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 1) + (9 + 5 + 1 + 5 + 1 + 9 + 3 + 8) = 44 + 41 = 85

SPINNING RADIANCE:
(1 + 7 + 9 + 5 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 7) + (9 + 1 + 4 + 9 + 1 + 5 + 3 + 5) = 48 + 37 = 85

WINTER STRAWBERRY:
(5 + 9 + 5 + 2 + 5 +9) + (1 + 2 + 9 + 1 + 5 + 2 + 5 + 9 + 9 + 7) = 35 + 50 = 85

These web pages "On the Number 86" are dedicated to Professor Harold A. Scheraga
on his 86th birthday (October 18, 2007). I was fortunate to do my doctorate research
in his laboratory at Cornell University on the physical chemistry of macromolecules.
He provided inspiring guidance in my research work & cultivated in me an insatiable
love of learning which continues to this day. I recall attending a Cornell symposium
in honor of Professor Peter Debye's 80th birthday who was stumping presenters with
engaging questions after their lectures. Professor Scheraga, now at 85 years of age,
is still active as ever researching on the mysteries of protein structural folding,
and sharing his prodigious knowledge at invited lectures around the world.


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