an old writer and his words

  • THE SIXTH ANCESTOR’S “YOUR MIND IS MOVING”

    As you look out the window you say the branches of the tree are dancing, the clouds barely stopping to gaze down on the scene. Walk outside and feel the breeze skitter along your skin, see the seed pods of the maple take wing and fly off. Ask yourself why this is, is it the…

    Lou Faber

  • WITHOUT WITHIN

    When you peer through the glass are you looking out, or are you looking in, and how would you know which is true, and does it matter. When you walk through a gate are you entering or leaving. If you ask where the gate is located, you cannot find where you are going, for all…

    Lou Faber

  • ZAZEN

    He likes the sitting, at least at first. It does calm him, as it is supposed to, and he knows he needs calm in his life. Even his knees accept the stillness for a while. Soon enough they begin to question the wisdom of this practice. Good for him, maybe, but hell for them, regardless…

    Lou Faber

  • TRIPTYCH

    Origami cranes take to the sky, devour clouds denying winter. Zebra butterflies hover, dance on rays of light never tomorrow The pond imagines itself one day a great lake its shore dreams of spring.

    Lou Faber

  • TUNG SHAN’S NO COLD OR HEAT

    You say all you seek is moderation, simply finding a middle way, though nothing at all would suffice for you, no pleasure, no pain, no loss or gain, you would willingly attach to nothing at all. This is not the path the Buddha would tell you, for the place you claim to seek cannot ever…

    Lou Faber

  • NARA

    It was inside Nara that it finally slipped away. Its tether had grown ever weaker, the first slip was decades before, a book, brief meetings an answerless question. It stretched further in Tokyo, basin incense under the watchful third eye and hung perilously by fewer and fewer threads until, with the monks’ gentle bow, it…

    Lou Faber

  • DESHAN’S “NEITHER ASKING NOR NOT ASKING”

    If you very much want something you must ask for it clearly, but if you ask for it, it will be denied to you. If you do not ask for it, you may be certain you will not get it no matter how much you want it. If you sit and think about this, you…

    Lou Faber

  • WALKING

    He has been walking for hours, or, perhaps for days, it doesn’t matter since he is precisely where he should be at this moment. He is tired, so he sits in seiza and watches a colony of ants working away in a crack in the path, each doing his assigned task. He knows ants have…

    Lou Faber

  • QIANFENG’S “THREE TYPES OF SICKNESS”

      When you assume the mat and gaze at the wall, what is it you see? If you see nothing, what do you think? If you are certain that you see nothing, that is what you think. Do not see, do not think, and let the cushion fall away until the moment you no longer…

    Lou Faber

  • YUN MEN’S THE BODY EXPOSED, THE GOLDEN WIND

    How long have you searched for the ultimate truth, the key that will unlock the door to enlightenment?. Would you know such a key if it were handed to you? You go about asking teachers if they would give you the key, but the wisest of the sages would gladly tell you that you need…

    Lou Faber