an old writer and his words

  • HAWKING AUTUMN

      The hawks have been circling more frequently of late, but in the early autumn laziness of merely riding the breezes that seem to pick up in the mornings, before the midday sun bids them be calm so it can make its transit. By afternoon, they tend to roost high up in the giant pines,…

    Lou Faber

  • SEIGAN’S COST OF RICE

    The search will be endless the answer at once obvious and incapable of being found. You seek direction to it, certain the right teacher holds the key to the critical gate, inside which all of the Dharma sits waiting for you. If the teacher asks you how many people live in a distant city you…

    Lou Faber

  • FLYING TIME

    She said, “the saddest thing of all is time. We spend so much of it trying to insure we know exactly what time it is, that it gets away from us and is gone long before we get around to using it.” He said, “but it’s important to know what time it is, in case…

    Lou Faber

  • WALKING THE WIRE

    There is a precarious balance we spend much of life attempting to maintain. It is like the invisible border between day and night dream and forgetting and we walk the wire along the precipice awaiting the arrival of the sun so that we can bid farewell to the dark places in which our dreams hide.

    Lou Faber

  • COUPLING

      He asks when as if it were all a matter of timing as if the immediacy or lack of it somehow really mattered. She would never ask that but would want to know who. She’s far too polite to ever ask why preferring to see the scene in the mind’s eye allowing a thin…

    Lou Faber

  • THE SPACE BETWEEN

      The space between want and need is at once a vast gulf and the width of the hair, much the same as that separating luck and greed. It is only in the eyes mind that the gap is insurmountable and we give up hope that those who live in the land of wants will…

    Lou Faber

  • SELF AND NO-SELF

    The Buddha said when the student is ready the teacher appears. My Rabbi used to say when you are ready the Lord will appear. But you may not recognize God, that’s okay. Both Buddha and my Rabbi might have said that when you are ready you will appear and it is then you will no…

    Lou Faber

  • MOONING

    If you set aside the small fact that earth is the only inhabitable planet it’s fairly clear the cosmos gave us a surprisingly bad deal when the cards were dealt. It’s true that Mercury and Venus got no moons, but it wouldn’t much matter for they can see a sun we can’t begin to imagine,…

    Lou Faber

  • YAKUSAN’S BIRTH OF A CALF

    In the middle of the day you can not see because the sun is too bright and may blind you. At midnight you stumble searching for light for you are blind in the darkness. What is it you struggle so hard to see? A reflection on case 66 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)

    Lou Faber

  • TOMORROW

    As night settles over our house we slip beneath the blanket and imagine the day to come in all of its promise. By morning, reality will set in and I will awake to a day reliant on us to set its course, a captain with no chart and only hope and compassion to steer us…

    Lou Faber