If you stare at it
very closely and carefully
you will soon see that deep
within it there is silence.
You may take it with you,
it will go along willingly,
but if only you
don’t try and grasp it.
It is soft to the touch, certainly,
and has a sweetness that settles
gently into the heart, it shimmers
as it should, so enjoy it, for it,
unlike you or I,
is truly immortal.
Tomorrow, in all likelihood,
the park will still be there,
we will still be walking there,
the Austrian Pines will still
stare down at us on the path,
and the cardinal will flash by,
his cry for attention in a red blaze.
Tomorrow all this will likely happen
as it did yesterday and last week,
and yet nothing will be the same,
nothing, nothing at all.
Far out on the mesa
the wind sings an alluring song
to the melody of the wooden flute.
You can sit among the sage,
and like the orange orbed coyote
around you, stare up at the moon
and look for the spirits
of the ancient ones that lived
in these mountains, the tricksters
who come out when the sun
is carried off for its rest,
and fancydance up and down
the parched arroyos until
they take the moon and depart
before dawn, promising a return.
If you meet the Bodhisattva,
you don’t ask someone
to carve the image from your mind.
To the carver, she weighs but an ounce
and can be carried
on his fingertip
but try to lift her
and you will not be able
to move her from her place.
All Buddhas
are one Buddha
but his Buddha
will never be
your Buddha.
A reflection on case 58 of the Iron Flute (Tetteki Tosui)
Tomorrow, unlike yesterday
which no longer exists,
everything is promised
and nothing guaranteed.
There is no eventuality
in the present moment
and this is where we
are forced to live.
A week from this
Thursday something will
happen that no one could
have ever foreseen.
This is the beauty
and the horror, at once,
of our limited vision,
afraid to see the present
although it is all
that is clearly within
our visual field.
Instead we look back
into the shadows
where memory substitutes
for clarity and truth,
or forward
into the abyss.
Awakening in the morning
when you first see the sun
and the dew resting on thee leaf
which eye are you using.
When you stare into the mirror
through what eye do you see,
and what eyes stare back at you.
When you see the deer
lying in the road
which eye do you use.
In a nightmare, when you slip
into the deeper, darker world,
what eye is used then.
When a friend fades into death,
what eye sees his departure.
Think carefully on this
for only one eye can see
the answer lying within.
A reflection on case 67 of The Iron Flute (Tetteki Tōsui)
