an old writer and his words

  • THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA’S WISDOM

    If you wish to find true wisdom where do you begin to look? Everywhere you look is the wrong place, for true wisdom is everywhere. If this confuses, first look for yourself. Where will you find yourself? If you say in the mirror, all will laugh for the mirror is nothing more than reflective glass.…

    Lou Faber

  • TIME’S ARROW CURSED

      He will be 90 in a few weeks. He doesn’t think this is possible. He says he wasn’t supposed to live this long. He asks again how old he is. You’re still 89, I tell him. He has a relieved look on his face. Then he smiles at me, says, that means you are…

    Lou Faber

  • ONCE

    It was easier being Buddhist when I was young, despite the fact I had no good idea what Buddhism truly was. for a child the moment is all there is, the past so short that it means nothing, the future something that will arrive as and when it wishes. For a child, things will go…

    Lou Faber

  • DIRECT ROUTE

    He would rather be from somewhere. Where he is or is not going matters very little to him now, he will be where he will be, will go where he needs or wants to go or is taken, and when there, that is where he should be, so being there is no problem. But until…

    Lou Faber

  • GATE GATE

    The hardest thing of all is that there is no one to entreat, no one who has to sort the infinite voices, note who requested what so that delivery of the prayers, the few that warrant granting, go to the correct person, particularly given that there is no system in place to track the whims…

    Lou Faber

  • FROM HERE TO

      He finds it hard to believe that no matter which path he chooses, and he has chosen so very, very many over time, each path seems always to lead him to one particular place. The place always seems the same, here, though he knows it should be different each time he arrives. It frustrates…

    Lou Faber

  • KEEP THE NIRVANA

    He was never one to go searching. It took up too much time. It certainly took far more effort than the results usually warranted. And there wasn’t anything in particular he wanted to go in search of. She said she was searching for ecstasy. He said he could buy it downtown, but it had grown…

    Lou Faber

  • HUI CH’AO ASKS ABOUT BUDDHA

    When you look in the mirror do you hope to see yourself, and who is that face that stares back? If you turn out the light, are you still there in the mirror, or has the illusion of you disappeared? If you crack the mirror, do you feel the pain of the scar across your…

    Lou Faber

  • SEOUL MUSIC

    The hardest part of getting old isn’t the near constant aches and pains but the senses that slip away, replaced by an ever deeper truth. She says to really play the blues on piano you must have Seoul and listening to her, you agree, although you aren’t sure if hers is Gangnam-gu or Jung-gu, but…

    Lou Faber

  • VOYAGE FROM WITHIN

    Magellan set sail 497 years ago, which had nothing to do with her desire to find a corner in which she could stand, protected on two sides, and still stare out into the world and see all that was going on around her. Better still if it were fashioned of plexiglass, it could surround her…

    Lou Faber