-
ON THE ROAD
On the road I found Tao. I held it and gazed at it from every angle, but seeing nothing placed it back on the road. On the road I found a sutra. I held the scroll and gazed at its strange letters, but reading nothing placed it back on the road. On the road I found…
-
MORNING HAIKU
In morning’s stillness we all hear the Buddha’s breath the zendo awakens. The mourning dove sings prayers to the departing moon a monk sits zazen Tomorrow is gone, yesterday has disappeared. What moment is this?
-
OT
Standing in the garden soaking in the sudden downpour Eve turned to Adam and said, “Did you bring the umbrella?” “What’s an umbrella?” Adam asked. “I’m eating the apple” Eve replied.
-
ETERNITY
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 the moment, an instant that was, as…
-
BUDDHA NATURE
The infant girl smiles with infinite knowledge, present wholly in this moment, knowing no other, her eyes speaking with the wisdom of all who have gone before her. In those eyes your heart hears stories of universes waiting to born, collapsing inward, naked singularities, and compassion. She doesn’t offer to teach you, but you cannot…
-
MEMORIAL
This woman approaches the stone, carefully places sake and cherry blossoms and leans a sotoba against it, before bowing and walking away. It is what you do for a son, she says, looking at the bibbed Jizo hoping she can protect the child who lies beneath. That woman approaches the headstone, gently places the flowers and leans…
-
COYOTE SONG
Down at the butt end of the arroyo is a pond, an aneurysm in the stream that runs down from the mountains for better than a month each spring. The twisted, gnarled mesquite cluster around it, like children gazing at a corpse in utter fascination who dare not approach lest it become real and touch…
-
NARA PARK
I Ducks skitter across Ara-ike pond like a perfectly thrown skipping stone. Two sit and preen on large rocks left as pedestals. A spider dragging its prey along the weathered wood railing of the bridge pauses for a moment to contemplate ducks, then moves on consumed by hunger. II Several deer languish among the wizened…
-
ZEN
He has just turned two. He sits on my lap one hand clapping mine, for each of us a moment of Zen in ways no one can understand, since neither he nor I do. His laugh promises something, a future of moments like this, and yet never the same. “It is our river,” his smile…
-
WALKING AMONG SAND AND PEBBLES: SHASEKI-SHU
CUP OF TEA 沙石集 一 When the cup is half full what more can be added? In the garden, the moon can exist in a full cup or one only half full. It is the empty cup that can hold entire universes, infinite in capacity. FINDING A DIAMOND 沙石集 二 There are endless paths…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
an old writer and his words 