If you go in search of Buddha
should you see him, do
not stop or speak but run away.
If you do not see the Buddha
run away from that place.
If you stop, to take water
from the edge of a still pond
look carefully, for
the Buddha is there
just above the water’s surface.
A reflection on case 80 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)
You are still there. You have a patience that I will not know in this lifetime. I know I can always find you, even though you never reach out to me except in my dreams. There I tell you my life story and you listen intently. You have no need to ask questions, knowing I will tell the whole story in due time, And time is one thing you have that I, increasingly, lack. So I’ll be back for another visit soon and you will be waiting for me, mother.
The gods have ceased
to care about us, too
busy with other more important
tasks like fighting their
pending evictions from
Olympus and Asgard.
And the demigods have
never given a damn
about us, always preening
and imagining their
elevation, so we are left
to muddle along and we
know how that has worked
through history, so we
have turned away, anointed
ourselves, declared we
are holy and built a heaven
and hell as a final middle
finger to the once gods
who can all go to hell.
The person I see each morning
looks vaguely familiar, perhaps
someone I once met in passing,
or maybe a distant relative.
But he was so much older
so he was difficult to place.
I do say hello each morning
but get only a nod, a gesture
in response, as if the person
is mute, for he smiles back
so it is not a silence born
of anger or displeasure.
I will of course keep trying
for I know that I will
one day recognize his all
too familiar face, and I
need to act now for he is
aging quickly so my time
is limited, and in any event
the mirror does need cleaning.
Sitting in stillness, the silence
is at first shocking, deafening
in a way unimagined but there.
Within the lack of sound lies
a thousand sounds you
never heard in the din of life.
You hear the young monk at Senso-ji
approach the great bell and pull
back on the log shu-moku, straining.
You hear the laugh of school aged
children hand in hand walking through
the Temple grounds as pigeons gather.
You hear the cat, sitting at the foot
of Daibutsudan, staring out
and the deer waiting at the gate.
You hear your breath and that
of a million others as they sit
on their cushions sharing what is.
Publshed in As Above, So Below, Issue 9, August 2022
https://issuu.com/bethanyrivers77/docs/as_above_so_below_issue_9
The utter and complete absurdity
of living in Florida can
be ever so easily illustrated.
Last evening the neighbor’s
dog decided it needed
to express itself and did so
in clear and loud terms.
The limpkins and gallinules
in the wetland behind
both our homes shouted back
and based on my admittedly
limited vocabulary of bird
there were several four
letter words and at least one
upraised middle claw,
for that language is universal.
And all of this was once
Native American land and I
am certain they would not be
pleased at what we have created
and the birds would agree.
I was the adoptee,
was the whole for years, until.
It is always the until
that is your undoing, was
mine when she
remarried, then two births.
I was one third then, never
again truly whole and when
she died I discovered
in her will I was only
one twentieth, and
then never even that.
I want to forget her,
forget them, deny
them, but all I
know how to do is forgive.
You offer to me
that which I cannot take,
I refuse to give you
the one thing you can accept.
We each have nothing
and give nothing
and are happy
for the perfect gift.
A reflection on Case 90 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)
I still have grave doubts
about designers in general, clothing
houses in more particular,
and above all furniture.
You have to ask if the person
who designed this chair
was somehow incapable of sitting,
or simply wanted something
that looked artistic, to hell
with the comfort of its occupant.
And some designers take this
to extremes, hoping perhaps
for some measure of eternal recognition.
Take for example the Adirondack chair,
found throughout the northeast
on porches and in yards,
in a myriad of colors,
that no one ever seems
to sit on, for good reason.
Twenty years ago today
and there was no band playing,
at least not for me, for I knew
nothing of you yet, and you
knew nothing of me either.
I have met you since
in a moment of silence,
looking at a yearbook picture
knowing what was not, what
never was or could be.
I recite the Kaddish
even though my Judaism
has been laid to rest,
knowing what is, and
imagining what might have been.
an old writer and his words 