an old writer and his words

  • MORE MUSIC OF THE FLUTE

    SANSHO MEETS A STUDENT                               鐵笛倒吹 十二 One goes to the gate to welcome the new student and with a broad smile turns his back in silence, offering nothing. Another will not leave the Zendo, sitting in stillness at the sound…

    Lou Faber

  • PROPRIETY OF MORNING

    There is a propriety of morning that appears denied to the rest of day, escaping Luna’s grasp the sun can sing in a voice deep in prayer and yet at play. The lives that quietly left in the night are balanced by the days measure of births but at dawn when the sun throws off…

    Lou Faber

  • SENBAZURU

    A thousand cranes take flight hanging from the ceiling under the watchful eye the old Japanese man framed on my wall and the Buddha staring down from my dresser.

    Lou Faber

  • TWO JOURNEYS THROUGH THE GATE

    Tosotsu’s Three Barriers          無門關 四十七 Before you sit Tosotsu’s three mountains how will you traverse them, legless on your zafu? Look within your mind, search diligently, for when you find nothing, all is laid out before you. Confuse life and death for one is the other, the other the one. Search…

    Lou Faber

  • THIEF

    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 eat away at 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…

    Lou Faber

  • A CONVERSATION

    She said, “You’re breaking my heart,” as though it was a small twig which, stepped upon, splinters with a small pop, pieces flying in opposition, lost on the forest floor, waiting patiently for the next errant step to further subdivide until the bits are indistinguishable and slowly rot into the soil. I said, “My emotions…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHTWAY TOKYO

    It is well into the Season When Thunder Sleeps and the crowds no longer snaked through  Shinjuku Park where even the stones were in quiet hibernation. The sun fell quickly sucking away the light bringing the sleep of dreams and nightmares, of love and terror and despair. The night chant began for yet another night…

    Lou Faber

  • CRADLING NIGHT

    Last night the moon hid daring the stars to give chase across the void but they preferred their slow procession. I looked long, hard for her but she was master of this game. I looked for her behind the neon signs blazing from countless buildings electric grave stones marking the resting place of peace on…

    Lou Faber

  • TENT CITY

    From my window on the twenty-sixth floor they appear as so many blue roofs, arranged in small villages in Shinjuku-Chuo Park below. At 6:30 in the morning many older Japanese gather in sweater vests and hats despite the humidity to perform the tai chi ritual. Nearby hands and feet emerge from blue tarp tents crammed…

    Lou Faber

  • IMPERMANENCE

    In this moment there is, and can be, no other. And when the moment is gone it never existed, much as the next will never exist. So it is with us, a reflection of the ripple of the long sunk stone now nestling the bottom of the pond.

    Lou Faber