an old writer and his words

  • KEGON RETURNS TO DELUSIONS 鐵笛倒吹 語十二

    If a gentle flower falls from its branch do you mourn its departure. The fool attempts to place it back in the bush, the wise one waits for another flower to appear. Each is the same flower but how will the fool become wise. A reflection on case 52 of the Iron Flute.

    Lou Faber

  • TRUE MEASURE

    If you ask me the true measure of a passing moment, I will tell you it is at once invaluable, and by equal measure useless, lost in the detritus of time’s wave, now receded. Do not try and cling to it for your memory is all that is impermeable, and then only in a moment…

    Lou Faber

  • CORSO

    When my back was turned, Corso slipped away somewhere in Wisconsin silently, without protest carried off by Charon across a gasoline river. There was no bomb to announce his departure, no Queens orphanage stopped frozen in a silent moment. In the small park at the north end of Salt Lake City no one lifted a…

    Lou Faber

  • ISAN’S TIME 鐵笛倒吹 十六

    A cold day — how many other winters can you remember, how many future winters can your mind grasp? Can you hold yesterday in the palm of your hand can you wrap tomorrow around your thumb? Between the palms in gassho lies all life and being. A reflection on case 10 of the Iron Flute.

    Lou Faber

  • A QUESTION, AN ANSWER

    What is there in a yawn that has time inexorably slow, flattening notes by some unknown but ever constant fraction of a tone, so that it lingers painfully before proceeding? A moment locked in place, frozen like Schrodinger’s cat before observation.

    Lou Faber

  • THE WORLD HONORED ONE ASCENDS

    The student may comment, “Hillel was asked to sum up all of the teaching while standing on one foot and did so.” If this student asks the teacher to provide the essential nature of Dharma in one sitting, what choice does the teacher have but to rise and leave the room. The teacher may comment,…

    Lou Faber

  • DOGO’S GREATEST DEPTH 鐵笛倒吹 六十六

    If you walk into the room and many are meditating, how will you know which is the teacher, which the students? If one sits on a higher platform will you assume him teacher and ask the depth of his Zen? If he comes down to you and says he has no depth to offer do…

    Lou Faber

  • A MEDITATION

    The cat curls on the mat and you assume she is not practicing zazen, that is just something cats are prone to do. Hakuin Ekaku only ascribed such nature to dogs, but perhaps true Buddha nature is a secret held close by our felines.

    Lou Faber

  • ABIDING

    Do not look behind you to see if the Emperor is following, for if he is, he will not see you. If he asks nothing, tell him that there is no truth, that everything is true. He has no teacher and looks at each passing person to find one. You should not be worried because…

    Lou Faber

  • PRACTICING NOTHING

    We assume our seats, listen for the bell and then do nothing. Doing nothing is far more difficult that doing something. Doing nothing is something that takes great practice. You can practice doing something, but eventually, with sufficient practice, you may master that something. You never master doing nothing, for nothing is infinitely broad, something…

    Lou Faber