an old writer and his words

  • JIZO PLANTS THE FIELD

    If you truly want to walk in the footsteps of the Buddha stand perfectly still and unmoving. If you truly want to comprehend the whole of the Dharma put down all of your books and scrolls, roll up your sleeves and plant the barren fields, clearing away rocks and stones. If you want to taste…

    Lou Faber

  • NO MONSTER HERE

    Macbeth had a witches problem, but that hardly made him unique. It’s true that Scottish witches are more difficult to deal with than those of much of the rest of Western Europe, something to do with being under English dominion for so damned long that Erse is a nearly forgotten tongue, but you’d think a…

    Lou Faber

  • TAKE WING

      There comes a moment when, if our backs are turned, it will arrive and if we notice it will withdraw and hide in corners. We may see it in the periphery and sneak up on it. If we move quickly enough, we can snatch it up and watch it fly off into the morning.

    Lou Faber

  • UMMON’S TWO SICKNESSES

      If you truly believe that you will soon enough meet your teacher you must gather together all of your questions concerning the Dharma. Carry them with you at all times in a satchel thrown over your shoulder, for you will be allowed only a single meeting with the master. When you meet the master,…

    Lou Faber

  • MOMENT(US) ARRIVAL

    Sooner or later the moment arrives when there is no option left and you have to decide. There are never facts enough, or time – uncertainty is a most unwelcome companion. In this moment indecision is not an allowed outcome and every selection is at once right and wrong.

    Lou Faber

  • ONLY NOW

    Tomorrow, in all likelihood, the park will still be there, we will still be walking there, the Austrian Pines will still stare down at us on the path, and the cardinal will flash by, his cry for attention in a red blaze. Tomorrow all this will likely happen as it did yesterday and last week,…

    Lou Faber

  • WINDSONG

      Far out on the mesa the wind sings an alluring song to the melody of the wooden flute. You can sit among the sage, and like the orange orbed coyote around you, stare up at the moon and look for the spirits of the ancient ones that lived in these mountains, the tricksters who…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHT ARRIVES

      As night advances, the clouds march in slow retreat to the horizon under the tattoo of the crows cadenced cawing. Once gone from sight, under the always watchful moon, they shall regroup and prepare to reemerge in the first shadow of the sun of morning.

    Lou Faber

  • ECLIPSED

      Tomorrow the moon will be full of herself hiding behind the cape of the afternoon sun. It is of no matter the moon would say if asked, for this doesn’t happen often. She would dazzle our eyes if she dared show her ancient face but not tomorrow, not this once in a blue moon.…

    Lou Faber

  • KANNON’S STATUE 鐵笛倒吹 語十八

    If you meet the Bodhisattva, you don’t ask someone to carve the image from your mind. To the carver, she weighs but an ounce and can be carried on his fingertip but try to lift her and you will not be able to move her from her place. All Buddhas are one Buddha but his…

    Lou Faber