an old writer and his words

  • GOING OVER THE BLUE CLIFF: HEKIGANROKU CASE 4

    TE SHAN CARRIES HIS BUNDLE Walking in the room you cast your eyes about, looking for something, although you cannot say what it is that you look for, and you cannot believe you will not find it, for you think you will know what it is only when you see it. The person who sees…

    Lou Faber

  • MEETING BUDDHA ON THE ROAD

    In my dreams last night, I thought I came across the Buddha while off wandering somewhere I could not recognize. I thought long and hard about following Linji’s prescription and killing this Buddha, but while lost in my contemplation the Buddha took up his keisaku, said, “if you cannot follow the simplest of directions, if you…

    Lou Faber

  • AKEDA

    My father never walked me up a hill, never asked two servants to wait below, never bid me be strong, never asked me to have faith in the Lord, never raised the blade only to see a ram in a thicket. My father never did any of these things and so I have no special…

    Lou Faber

  • FROM BEYOND

    “Call your mother,” she says. She speaks in the voice of my mother. It grates on my nerves in just the same way it always did. I listen carefully. She repeats herself.  I reminded her that she died two years ago. I tell her I tried to call for months after her passing, but there…

    Lou Faber

  • TELLER

    She claims to see the future in a glass orb, in the palm of a hand, in the cards spread out on a small table. He knows all history is written in books is retold in stories is buried in successive layers of soil beneath the city. Neither walks along the shore see this wave…

    Lou Faber