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THIRD EYE, NEEDING GLASSES
You ask me what is the first thing I can remember, and seem surprised when I tell you memory is much like a Buddhist river, never the same twice. Memory is a stage and I am one to forget my lines, today it’s the window in the back of a Miami Beach bus amazed at…
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ATOP THE POLE 無門關 四十六
Sitting atop a hundred foot pole you are convinced there are only two directions: pole and down. Old Osho asks: “How will you proceed?” and you stare back at this lunatic. “How will you proceed?” he repeats. You release the pole and step slowly away, looking in all ten directions before you, only then do…
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HARMONY
A young woman steps from the shower and wraps herself in a large blue towel. “I don’t want you to see me,” she says, to the young man standing in the door of the small bathroom, “look away for now.” He reminds her they are married. She says, “One thing has nothing to do with…
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RETURN FROM NINEVAH
Jonah, what color is the sun at dawn? Black as the night preceding it Jonah, what is the odor of spring? That of rotting rincinus Jonah, what shall we say to a crying baby? The gates of Ninevah will be…
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KINKA’S ANCIENT MIRROR
A river may rub a stone until it reflects the morning sun. A jeweler may polish it and facet it until it shatters the light in ten directions. A wise man knows it is still the same stone. A reflection on Shobogenzo Case 117
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STATUS QUO
It does so little good to wonder why things are not as I wish them as they should be as they seem to me as they once were. Things always are, either more nor less,…
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KANNON’S STATUE
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 and lift her and you will not be able to move her from her place. All Buddhas are one Buddha but his…
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GABRIEL, AT HOME IN OHIO
I saw an angel settle slowly over Akron dancing in the smoke rising out of the stacks of the ancient plant. It flitted, darting in and out of the gray haze, one moment she, the next he, and as the sun settled slowly down, for an instant no more than a cherub. It was not,…
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MILES FROM HERE
Some say Miles said it’s the space between the notes – that’s where the music is. We heard him, we smiled, we anticipated the next note and the next. Outside my window a blue jay recites his morning prayer, the child’s laugh breaks the frozen sky and shivers the maple. Then all is silence –…
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SEKITO’S GREAT AND SMALL CANON
This wave touches the shore just as it should. That wave touches the shore just as it should. You may wait an eternity for a wave that touches just not as it should, just as it should not, or you can sit and let the waves wash over you. A reflection on Case 53…
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an old writer and his words 