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SEKITO’S ASK THE PILLAR 正法眼蔵 四十一
If you want an answer do not ask a question – your answer cannot be mine nor can mine be yours. Instead, ask the stone wall, it has nothing to say and in its perfect silence all questions are asked and all answers are found. A reflection on Case 41 of the Shobogenzo, Dogen’s True…
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ADIRONDACK EVENING
Atop the hill the trees are filigree against the fading light. The tents are fireflies twinkling as night reclaims the earth. I am caught up in the chill watching my breath kiss the stars. First Appeared in Blueline, Vol. 22, 2001. Reprinted in Legal Studies Forum, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2005
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THREE
Ginkgo trees laden with leaves fanning the dawn sun Seeds lie in waiting The morning bell sounds the monks pause from their labors Buddha sits zazen The wall does not move only the breath is moving count it carefully
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UNDER THE WEIGHT
My shelves grow heavy with volumes of words I wish I had written, neatly bound up in books that stare at me, at once bidding me welcome and challenging me to enter. One shelf is set aside for books of pages, blank, on which I have written each day now for three and a half…
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EARLY MORNING
Early this morning as I drove through the mist that clings to Portland in March like a child’s yellow slicker, I thought of you, home, asleep on our bed, my side tidy, no faint indentation of life, and I thought of the thousands who have died to date in Iraq, who never again will leave…
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SLIP SLIDING AWAY
There comes a moment at which both memory and history become blurred at the edges, where the bedrock on which belief has been so carefully erected seems more magma, shifting threatening to bring down the superstructure of desire and assumption. It is the fading that is at once both fear inducing and exhilarating for faith…
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PC
You set a record today, five blue screens, and finally there was no rebooting, and even the tech at her desk in Bangalore could not figure out the error message and politely gave up promising your replacement won’t have these problems. There’s a whole new set of crashes and lockups waiting in the box down…
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MIDDLE C
Mrs. Weiskopf lived in a small cottage Mrs. Weiskopf taught piano in her living room. Mrs. Weiskopf had no first name, even checks were to be made payable to Mrs. Weiskopf. Mrs. Weiskopf grew suddenly old, some said, to full fit into her name, no one could remember her ever being young. Mrs. Weiskopf said…
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A MONK IN MEDITATION 鐵笛倒吹 七十語
A man may own may volumes of great knowledge and never have time to read. An illiterate may take such books and fashion a stool on which to sit in meditation. Which of these is truly wise which the greatest fool. Wipe your mouth with this page at the conclusion of the meal. A reflection…
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MOMENT
Enter slowly, calmly, and we dare say enter at your own risk for you cannot know what will happen within, nor can we although we have been here countless times before if our memory serves us, which of course it cannot for it, too, is stuck in this very moment with no escape. Do not…
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an old writer and his words 