an old writer and his words

  • AFOOT, A CITY

    As you walk the streetsof a city like New York,you hear a polyglot of languages,and closing your eyes youmight have no idea where you were. Listen carefully, eavesdropon conversations, imagine the storiesthey are telling, the joysand heartbreak laid bare before you,half heard, half filled into make the story palatable to you. Life in the city…

    Lou Faber

  • EXPECTATION

    They came this afternoon. They were not expected. They tend to show up when thet are not expected. We expect that of them. They did not tell us they were coming. If they had, we would expect them. They do not want to be expected. We expect that of them. They did not do what…

    Lou Faber

  • HOFUKO’S POINT OF ATTAINMENT

    You may ask many thingsof any teacher you meetbut the wisest of themwill only offer youunending questions.When you look to themto point you to the Waythey are doomed to failurefor your feet obscurethe Way, and it is onlyby looking withinand down through your legsand feet and toesthat you can see the way A reflection on…

    Lou Faber

  • AT FIRST

    The first timeI heard itI knewthat voicecame from a placeI had never visited,would neverbe able to go. It penetrated mereverberatedwithin mea harmonicthat shookme to my core. She reachedand graspedwhat I thoughtI had kept hidden,and as I dancedwith mynew bride,I knew Ettahad led meto loveAt Last.

    Lou Faber

  • LACKLAND

    They marched us to the middleof nowhere, sweat running downour backs, our olive drab uniformsnow three shades darker. They handed us a rifle, an M-16they told us in class, with a 5.56round, it would tumble afterit hit its target, good for killing. We lay on the ground, shoulderedthe weapon, aimed it at thetarget, a bottomless…

    Lou Faber

  • NONATTACHMENT

    There was the collectivist period,those years when I wanteda copy of every book on BuddhismI could locate, a full and nearlycomplete library, sutras andphilosophical discourses included. There was the moment when Irealized the absurdity of all that,the attachment to textsto enable me to find the abilityto practice non-attachment,and I gave the books away,and finally set…

    Lou Faber

  • TWILIGHT

    In the twilight of the dove,that moment when the sun’sretreat has only just begunmy shadow stretchesever so slowly into oblivion. I hear it whisper to mea promise to return and Iwant nothing more thanto believe it, for the grantof another day is a smallwish granted, one I makewith the knowledge thatthe genie of age is…

    Lou Faber

  • UMMON’S MOUNT SUMERU

    When you ask your teacherwhat happens when youstop thinking, allowno new thoughtswhat you expect himto tell you? The dead have no thoughtsbut that is not the doorto Nirvana. But if thoughts abandon youwithout your effort, withoutbeing asked to do so,then the door you seekwill open before you. A reflection on case 19 of the Book…

    Lou Faber

  • ON THE HORIZON

    In crossing the event horizondualities collapse and crumble.God and Satan are again mergedinto a unity, pressed into diamondits glint that of a thousand suns. We follow as we must, for nowthere is neither good nor evil,there merely is, and we have foundthe path we have been seekingon the road to our sigularity.

    Lou Faber

  • SCHMUTZ

    Looking out the windowI quickly realize that the windowneeds cleaning, and thenthat the red-shouldered hawkin the nearby tree is carefullystaring back at me. I want to know whatthe hawk is thinking, perhapsthat I am possible prey, ormore likely wondering whyI am so foolish as to livein a strangely large box. The hawk, of course, iswondering…

    Lou Faber