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RECALL
It is always odd watching older men gather to talk about their lives, about how much they no longer remember of last year and a decade ago, about the infinite details they do recall of their time spent in the army, air force, navy, the smell of slop on a shingle, the stain on the…
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A CHILDHOOD
I have fond memories of a childhood I never lived. Those are the best childhoods from for they reflect life as you meant it to be lived. In this life my father is in his late nineties, still smiles when he sees me, not didn’t clutch his chest sixty-one years ago, didn’t fall to the…
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UMMON’s KONSHIKETSU 無門關 二十一
Ummon might say a pile of cow dung in the road – this may be the Buddha. Will you step in or walk around? A reflection on case 21 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate)
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CYCLES
The Royal Poinciana is in full bloom, its brilliant flame has led the sun to take jealous refuge in the clouds but we know not to be complacent. Mother nature it is said, and we are loathe to argue, can be at times the most fickle of bitches and we suspect that it will not…
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WHAT’S IN A WORD
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, a pictograph usually five or fewer, and a word, but a single one by definition, while a word, with two exceptions, has at least two letters, and with the same two exceptions, a letter is always wordless but can be symbolic. The Hawaiian language…
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-NESS
Last week it was hers but we felt it ours, and wondered why her furniture, her life was impinging on this “our-ness.” Today it is ours and empty, and it has a deep sense of “whose-ness,” where we can see how easily “ours-ness” might return. Next week it will be our home and we will…
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ON THE MESA
At night, in these mountains you see a million stars, but all you hear is the silence. It bothers you, this silence and you strain to hear, what? There is no one here but you and your breath is swallowed by the night sky. Be still for the wind will rise, and these mountains and…
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NO REPLY
You must be home now, or somewhere you can answer my call, and the busy signal or disembodied voice, purporting to be you can only mean that this very moment if you are calling me the busy signal or disembodied voice purporting to be me is giving you a momentary frustration rivaling my own. This…
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IN MOTION
This time when we move the question could be asked, are we moving to somewhere or away from somewhere or, you fear asking, away from someone. That may be a truth left unsaid, saying requires an explanation, a ripping open of a wound just scabbed over or still raw around the edges. And there is…
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RINZAI’S TITLELESS MAN 鐵笛倒吹 語十七
If you come upon both beggar and nobleman see neither wealth or poverty, smell neither the fine rosewater or the crying need of a bath, hear neither the ravings of one or the philosophy of the other, taste neither the fine curry of the moldy bread crust, feel neither the tattered rag or the purest…
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an old writer and his words 