an old writer and his words

  • LISTENING TO THE FLUTE

    YAKUSAN HOLDS IT         鐵笛倒吹 十  Sit just above the peak of the highest mountain and reach up with open fingers, what will you grasp? Walk slowly across the floor of  the deepest sea, what do you see below you? If you have three daughters is any one less beautiful than the others?   JOSHU COVERS…

    Lou Faber

  • CLIFFSIDE AGAIN: HEKIGANROKU CASE 5

    HSUEH FENG’S GRAIN OF RICE It is not the seeing but the looking that will drive you to the edge. It is easy to see, you hardly need eyes for that task, but to look is beyond seeing. Do you think this a mere grain of rice? Look closely, do you see the entire world?…

    Lou Faber

  • GOING OVER THE BLUE CLIFF: HEKIGANROKU CASE 4

    TE SHAN CARRIES HIS BUNDLE Walking in the room you cast your eyes about, looking for something, although you cannot say what it is that you look for, and you cannot believe you will not find it, for you think you will know what it is only when you see it. The person who sees…

    Lou Faber

  • MEETING BUDDHA ON THE ROAD

    In my dreams last night, I thought I came across the Buddha while off wandering somewhere I could not recognize. I thought long and hard about following Linji’s prescription and killing this Buddha, but while lost in my contemplation the Buddha took up his keisaku, said, “if you cannot follow the simplest of directions, if you…

    Lou Faber

  • TOOTHLESS BODHISATTVA

    He will tell you that the distance between a tear and a laugh is the span of a mother’s arm. He knows the duration of sadness is identical to a shnork*. He cannot understand how you could have forgotten all this. He doesn’t know why you cannot recall that enlightenment is no more than a…

    Lou Faber

  • ANOTHER VISIT TO SHOBOGENZO

    YANGSHAN’S NO ENLIGHTENMENT Within nothing there are all things, within all things there is nothing. The Buddha asks in your binary electronic world how can I count on you to survive if zero is taken from you.   NANYUE POLISHES A BRICK There is no reason to sit zazen, it is worthless yet it cannot be…

    Lou Faber

  • THREE MORE VIEWS OF THE SHOBOGENZO

    BASO’S HEART SUTRA When my teacher asks of my practice I shall be still for the eye speaks volumes and the mouth sees all that lies before it. HŌON’S AWAKENING A fool always asks how do I get to where will I find what will come. A wise man can swallow an ocean in a…

    Lou Faber

  • THREE VIEWS OF THE SHOBOGENZO

    SEIGAN’S WHISK If a master asks where I am from I shall tell him. If he lifts his stick and asks if they have this stick there I will grab the stick and cast it into the ocean so it may go where it chooses. HYAKUJO REMAINS SEATED The gift of dharma flies off in…

    Lou Faber

  • QUESTIONS

    If the night sky contains no moon has the sun gone out? It is like a garden within a fence, do the flowers dream of freedom or are we the prisoners kept out from the world within their golden petals? A strong wind carries off the answers.

    Lou Faber

  • MORE MUSIC OF THE FLUTE

    UMMON’S FEAST         鐵笛倒吹 七 Sitting in the deep well of silence feel the old patriarchs dancing on top of your head, look down under the weight of their wisdom., to the earth and stare deeply into their eyes. But how will you go make a feast for the never sated gods? Lie on the earth,…

    Lou Faber