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MORE OR LEX
She wants to ask me how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin, but she knows that at their hourly rates no one will pause to count them. There is that and the fact that lawyers are used to calling the tune, not dancing to it. There is that, she says,…
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THE SHORE
The sea steals the edge of the shore, replacing it with something familiar and yet different. It is much the same with the waves of sleep that lap at my dreams leaving fractured memories and holes left to fill with desire and imagination. Walking along the shore of dawn and awakening, I feel time creep…
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TOKUSAN’S LION 鐵笛倒吹 九十三
As you approach the teacher, close the gate ahead of you, for an open one is no gate at all. If you ask, he will open it, but when he asks who wishes entry what do you say, you are a mere cub. If you bow to him expect a gentle blow from his…
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WHEN OR IF
In a clockless world all life is an approximation and clear boundaries evaporate like the mist off a morning pond. In that world this moment seeps into the next, night becomes day, only to return again. The Buddha knew this for in his clockless world all that existed was this moment an instant that was,…
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WHERE?
Is it the trip or the arriving that most matters, or is it simply what you expect once you are there, if there is where you expect for expectations are too often misplaced and assumptions reflect desire, not truth. In the end it hardly matters, for you can never be anywhere but where you happen…
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ARCHER
The work of the bow is done when the arrow takes flight, when the vibration of its string is recurved into stillness. But what of the archer now having let go, can only await the fletched arrival. If the target falls will the bow know the pain, will the archer, will the fingers hold the…
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ROBERT ALLEN ZIMMERMAN IN HELL
Baby Blue stormed into the room. Jones never saw her coming, was totally confused. Angry didn’t cover even the half of it. “I’ll tell your sorry ass when it’s over Jones and not the other way around, got it!? Oh, yeah, and by the way you are really packing on the pounds of late,…
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NO MIND, NO BUDDHA 無門關 三十三
Baso knows well only the ox truly understands the yoke but if you offer it the ox will not accept. Why would you seek to become the ox? It would be better to burn the yoke. A reflection on Case 33 of The Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate)
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SPECIES LOGIC
There is a logical reason that zoos are not built in the heart of cities for it would be difficult to ascertain which animals were the exhibits and which were the visitors, each in their own sorts of cages. In the end it would not work out well for lions and monkees prefer to watch…
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OF DREAMS AND DREAMERS
The morphology of dreams is partially reliant on the whims of a single god, and Morpheus is, to say the least, a truly fickle bastard who dangles before us joy and nightmare each always just out of reach, but never out of sight or hearing. So we are left to grasp like marionettes operated…