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NOT HERE
Between now and eventually lies all of history. We are unable to see it though it lies in our field of vision. That’s the problem, we only know how to look backward. We are barely able to see where we are. It isn’t that we don’t want to be here, merely that here is difficult…
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WHERE?
Set aside for a moment the sheer insanity of it all. Pretend that this is not your concern, it is merely something that you inherited, never wanted, would gladly part with on the simplest of requests you doubt will ever be forthcoming. Is this why you treasure it and cling to it so tightly or…
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SEKITO’S ASK THE PILLAR 正法眼蔵 四十一
If you want an answer do not ask a question – your answer cannot be mine nor can mine be yours. Instead, ask the stone wall, it has nothing to say and in its perfect silence all questions are asked and all answers are found. A reflection on Case 41 of the Shobogenzo, Dogen’s True…
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ADIRONDACK EVENING
Atop the hill the trees are filigree against the fading light. The tents are fireflies twinkling as night reclaims the earth. I am caught up in the chill watching my breath kiss the stars. First Appeared in Blueline, Vol. 22, 2001. Reprinted in Legal Studies Forum, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2005
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THREE
Ginkgo trees laden with leaves fanning the dawn sun Seeds lie in waiting The morning bell sounds the monks pause from their labors Buddha sits zazen The wall does not move only the breath is moving count it carefully
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UNDER THE WEIGHT
My shelves grow heavy with volumes of words I wish I had written, neatly bound up in books that stare at me, at once bidding me welcome and challenging me to enter. One shelf is set aside for books of pages, blank, on which I have written each day now for three and a half…
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EARLY MORNING
Early this morning as I drove through the mist that clings to Portland in March like a child’s yellow slicker, I thought of you, home, asleep on our bed, my side tidy, no faint indentation of life, and I thought of the thousands who have died to date in Iraq, who never again will leave…
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SLIP SLIDING AWAY
There comes a moment at which both memory and history become blurred at the edges, where the bedrock on which belief has been so carefully erected seems more magma, shifting threatening to bring down the superstructure of desire and assumption. It is the fading that is at once both fear inducing and exhilarating for faith…
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PC
You set a record today, five blue screens, and finally there was no rebooting, and even the tech at her desk in Bangalore could not figure out the error message and politely gave up promising your replacement won’t have these problems. There’s a whole new set of crashes and lockups waiting in the box down…
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MORNING SLOWLY
Morning slowly encroaches on your dreams, eroding images despite your tightening grasp. Clear lines blur, become hazy and dissipate, bleached by the first light creeping around the shades. The dreams do not care for they will arise again when they choose and this is for them a mere inconvenience. You are the loser here for…
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an old writer and his words 