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REAL TIME
Reality is clearly something to be avoided to be dressed up in tattery, tied in ribbons, perfumed, yet its fetid stench is always lurking in the background waiting to pierce your nostrils in an incautious moment until you retch and bring up the bile that marks the darker moments of your life, the kind that…
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JIZO’S FLOWER
When you see a painting of a beautiful rose, how can you describe it. You must breathe deeply of its sweet fragrance Be careful, do not pierce your finger on its waiting thorns. The rose has withered into dust before your mouth is opened. A reflection on Case 76 of the Iron Flute Koans
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OH, THE PLACES
“Every book is a picture book,” she says, with that certain wisdom the that comes from being seven, even though eight is far off on the horizon. “The difference with some,” she claims, “is that someone already drew all the lines and colored in the pictures.” She likes the books, she concludes, where she gets…
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WORD
archetypes symbols arrayed arranged precise meanings elusive multiplicative hearer dependent no Carrollean wishes fortresses erected below the tide line await waves minor etchings Durer or trivial seen or ignored Lot cast either diamond or salt pillar eroded by rain adrift torn by tongues cast to ash. First appeared in Eureka Literary Magazine Vol. 5, No.…
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HARYO’S SECRET TRANSMISSION
When you are puzzled by the words of old masters you may seek answers from your teachers. Will this one or that one know? The answer cannot come from the tongue of your teacher, a shelved book cannot speak words have no magic. But all is not lost for the question always contains its answer…
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TEN FOLD PATH (PT. 2)
6. Ox and man walk the dusty path to the small hut sit along the fence and look deeply into the bottomless night sky as they have for the endless journey 埃だらけの道をたどって 男と牛は小屋をめざす 塀にもたれて腰かけ 果てのない夜空を見つめる 終わりのない旅路で いつもそうしてきたように 7. Each morning the man senses the ox is in the pen, the ox smells the man in…
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TEN FOLD PATH (PT. 1)
1. He takes a first step eyes scanning the path, the field the forest for the ox. There is no ox. 男は最初の一歩を踏み出し 道に、野原に、その先の森に目をやる 男の目は牛を探し求める だがどこにも牛の姿はない 2. Much time passes another step and there in the soft mud of spring a print of hoof, deep isolated unpaired. 長い時間が過ぎ 男はさらに歩を進める そして春のぬかるみの中にひとつ 人知れず埋もれた 蹄（ひずめ）の跡を見つける 3. A step in…
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THIS VERY MIND
You are forever seeking the path, as though it will give you a sign. Seeking the Buddha is good but looking for him is ultimate futility for the eyes are incapable of looking within. A reflection on Case 30 of the Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate)
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DOGO WON’T SAY
I am the life of a hundred million others, you are the life of a hundred million others, a hundred million others are my life, a hundred million others arise from my death. How may hundred million are the same? None of them will say. A reflection on Case 29 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True…
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A PERFECT MOMENT
A week ago there was a moment that perfectly summed up life, at least as seen by a three-year-old. Three-year-olds know far more than they are given credit for knowing, far more, they are certain, than their parents, and just enough to make their grandparents laugh at the most inopportune moments. It was lunchtime, always…
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an old writer and his words 