If you see the Buddha
you have certainly gone blind,
if you hear his words
you demonstrate your deafness.
Nansen will grow old,
hearing and vision will fade
and he will sit and shout
in a sun warmed rain.
A reflection on Case 34 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) Koans
Three times the master’s question
three times the student’s response
each time, the same answer
each time the master shrinks
as answer surpasses question.
There is no master
there is no student
there is only the lamp
in two sets of hands.
A reflection on case 11 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) koans.
I am mystic, thief, madman,
all that, considerably more,
never begging, always taken
what is arrayed before me
favor curried, passage guaranteed
coins gathered, stored so there
are none to cover the eyes or pay
the ferryman’s wages.
I can turn wine to water
and hide fish in the midst
of loaves, the trick is
to distract you so the order
is reversed, a sleight unseen.
I am truly the prodigal son
vaudevillian and fall guy
and the spikes are a bitch
but the view is something to behold.
First Published in AGON Journal, Issue 0, 2021
I stooped and spoke
to a stone, asking the question.
I was here before you arrived
and I will be her long after you leave.
I held the sand in my hand
warm from the sun, asking the question.
I came after your arrived
and I will leave long before you are gone.
I held the winter wind on the tip
of a finger, asking the question.
I am not here now
and I have never been here.
I touched the waters
to my lips, asking the question.
I was above you when you came
and I will be below you when you go.
I saw the flames dance
before me, asking the question.
You were ashes once
and you shall be ashes again.
I stood mired in the clay
clinging to my legs, asking the question.
It is of me you were formed
and it is to me you will return.
I sat at the foot of God
blinding light, asking the question.
You cried to me at birth
and you will cry to me at death.
First Published in The Poet: Faith Vol. 1, Spring 2021
https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/spring-2021—faith
He says he is waiting patiently
for the arrival of heaven on earth.
He is not sure what that will be like
and the descriptions he has seen
are too fantastical to be believed,
all clouds and angels and music
He is hoping the things he loves
most will be available in heaven,
a good Alfredo sauce and German
chocolate cake, for two, but
heaven should be Starbucks-free,
since he will be able to drink
espresso at any hour, for you have
no need of sleep in heaven.
Until that moment comes, he will
sit for hours in the neighborhood
Starbucks because of its free wifi
and search for the best top ten
lists of ways to avoid hell and where
you can get wifi and
a good decaf espresso.
I should stand on the shore
take up a great shell
and blow a trumpet song
to the whales who stay
always just beyond sight.
I have no shore
on which to stand
and had I one, I lack
the skill to pluck
a song from a shell
and so the whales
I imagine offshore
must listen carefully
to the song I cast
deep within my dreams.
I imagine I am the creator
I imagine I am the created
and I am the creator
and I am the created
I am both, I am neither.
I exist because I think I exist
so I have created myself,
just as you exist to me because
I think you exist, I am creator.
I say I can touch you so you
must exist, but I touch with my mind
so I cannot prove your existence
only the thought of your existence.
When I die, I will no longer exist,
and you will no longer exist
as far as my you is concerned
and that is the only you I can know.
A thousand steps,
one hundred thousand more
along the path
and the goal
seems ever farther away.
Stop
and rest
in perfect stillness.
You are there,
it has walked with you.
A reflection on Case 86 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)
Joshu’s dog
and Schrodinger’s cat-
are they one
and the same?
Leave the lid
on the box
of the mind.
What is
the half life
of a thought?
A reflection on Cse 114 of teh Shobogenzo (Dogne’s True Dharma Eye)
Seeing your teacher on the road
if he says to you
Honorable Sir, what do you do?
You may turn, bow, and act the fool
or pass, eyes averted
without acknowledgement, silent
equally the fool.
Speak in silence,
face, bow without moving
greet him as you do yourself
in the morning mirror
and once past, offer gassho
and the fool is left on the path
dragging your shadow.
A reflection on Case 55 of the Iron Flute Koans
an old writer and his words 