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Bodhidharma’s Vast Emptiness
When teacher and studentsit face to face,mat to mat, looking deeplyone at the other,which is the teacherand which is the student? You are wrong.There is no teacher,there is no student,there is only the silenceof the momentin which all dharmais made obvious. A reflection on Case 2 of the Book of Equanimity
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ANTISOCIAL MEDIA
The meaning is simple,a data point here,another there,an image,an algorithmwords writtenin jest,in anger,regret,withdrawal,cancellation,account closed,remaining shadows,way back,pixels always moving,real friendsonce touched,I aman avatar to you,I have erasedyou from memory.
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THREE HAIKU
A momentthen another, anotheronly this one a world of delusionyesterday and tomorrowBuddha says Now! Egrets take flightwe stare awestrucknature pities us
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Advice to The Beginning Haikuist
Now take up the penand write economicallylest you run out of First published in Defenestration, Vol. XVI issue 2 August 2019
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IN THE KINGDOM
We sit in the waiting room,for we have grown accustomedto waiting for so many things,not wanting to rush a life thatappears ever more finite in duration. We stare at our phones, strugglingto see, to help bide the time, an ironynot lost for we are here becauseour vision is problematic or worse. Erasmus said the one-eyed…
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DEAR ERASMUS, DIE
Today we welcome the rain, hopethat the wheaty winter lawn willshow some other color under its care. The birds ignore the clouds,accept the rain, care little howour lawn looks, their next mealof always greater importance. I am losing the vision in one eye,know I may soon be kingof the country of the blind,and sadly curse…
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KEICHU THE WHEELMAKER 無門關 八
A collection of sticksand boards is Keichu’s cart Keichu’s cart no morethan a pileof sticks and boards not Irides no horsepulling no cart a hundred spokesdance in ten directions. A reflection on Case 8 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate Koans)
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WE ARE THE PEOPLE
We are the people, Who heard the glass breakingthat night as we huddled at home, Who inhaled the smokeof the Holy books as they burned, Who tried to flee but hadnowhere to go, always turned away, Who visited cosmetic doctorsto reshape our noses to look like the others Who adopted names to helperase a potentially…
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FOSSIL FUEL
It should give you pauseto consider that, in the midstof boundless greed, enmeshedin the near cult of self, rushingalways to go nowhere quickly,certain the problems of the world,can be solved tomorrow, usingresources that may never bereplenished or substituted for, when we are dead and buried,we will be the fossil fuelsthat future generationsrightfully shun in horror.
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PRISONER
This morning, I am certainthe earth pulled me down more strongly,as though gravity needed to reassert itself,having lost someone in its gripto the virus, a common complaintas we stumble through still another year. I fought it off course, the birdsin the wetland at once admiringmy effort and laughing at what they knewwould ultimately be a…
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an old writer and his words 