an old writer and his words

  • DROP IT

    It is a burden he does not want to bear any longer, one he would shed in a moment, but there is no place to put it and you cannot just leave it anywhere. And so he continues to bear it dragging it here, carrying it there, always attached to it, and it to him.…

    Lou Faber

  • KENSHO

    She curls in my arm, head on my chest, offers a gentle smile which melts me and I stroke her small shoulder, as Sid the Sloth and Manny the Mammoth, two bodhisattvas, smile back at us from the TV screen. Enlightenment isn’t something you seek, it’s a five-year old who sits next to you on the…

    Lou Faber

  • ERGO SUM

    She says she was certain she exists much as she is certain he exists as well. He says she thinks she exists, and thinks he does as well. Descartes, he says was right, at least on that point. She says no, it is obvious, thoughts requires existence, sum ergo cogito, she says, is how it…

    Lou Faber

  • ZAZEN

    Soon I will sit and stare into the wall, into my heart,, into the universe, and will find everything and nothing. But the center of nothing, is everything.

    Lou Faber

  • TOKYO SCENES (PART 2)

    Scene 1 From atop the Century Hyatt Shinjuku Chuo Park is a desolate maze of asphalt, its fountains stilled by winter. The horizon is dotted by the cranes, great and small, perched precariously engaged in their manic dance bending and swooping in defiance of the gods. Scene 2 Shinjuku Station is washed by the waves of…

    Lou Faber

  • TEACHER

    My teaching is a drawing made of water, faint when it leaves the pen it will be eaten by the sky, it may fall on the pond amid other drops of rain. If you cup your hands and drink it in it will someday be sprinkled on the earth where it will feed a plant…

    Lou Faber

  • SHRINE

    In the cramped dark little temple the Buddha casts his smile for the duration of a match and then you are returned to the pitch of the life from which you sought solace. Another match, another smile I am here always he whispers, you need only close your eyes to truly see me.

    Lou Faber

  • AN ENDLESS KNOT

    You are surprised when the young man approaches you, his saffron robes a bit faded, his sandals more worn flip-flops, his smiling face almost too happy for a cool morning on the rough pavement of a street in Vienna, cafes pressing the curb. He isn’t begging, not like at home, at least, but he does bow…

    Lou Faber

  • BUDDHA’S BODY

      If you see the golden body of the Buddha standing in the road will you stop for him? If you stop and ask him to teach you you will be rejected. If you stop and do not ask him to teach you you will be rejected. If you run him over and leave him…

    Lou Faber

  • AWAKENING

    He could not hope to remember how he got there, he had wandered in search of nothing in particular, save dinner as his hunger grew, but in Shinjuku you needn’t read Japanese since the menus sat molded in plastic in the window of even the smallest restaurants. He began to look more intently when he…

    Lou Faber