an old writer and his words

  • KINHIN (WALKING MEDITATION)

    The entirety of this practice is to learn to walk with a lightness, so that you contact the earth, the grass, not tread on it, so that the earth and the grass caress your feet and not try to push them away, and all the while there must be a gentleness of breath, so the…

    Lou Faber

  • IN DREAMS

    Mingling with the wind, my dreams are carried off into the night before I have fully finished viewing them. The heavy heat of summer has seeps through the windows, a blanket I cannot throw off almost smothering, until it, too, is soon washed away by the rivulets of sweat soaking into the sheets. I reach…

    Lou Faber

  • EUTERPEAN EVENING

    An evening: spring retreating in the face of summer, two garnacha, a piano, standup bass, drums, her voice lifts the weight of the sky and we float up on a melody, unchained. In heaven George and Ira smile and we, here, smile with them.

    Lou Faber

  • SEIJO’S SOUL 無門關 三十語

    Open your mouth and let your soul flee on the dance of your departing breath. Inhale slowly, let a different soul find purchase in your lungs. Both souls are your soul, neither soul is yours, but is it the moon or an obscuring cloud? A reflection on case 35 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate)

    Lou Faber

  • THE LAKE

    Sitting out in the middle of the large lake is a very small island. It’s more of a large rock just sticking out of the water, but everyone calls it an island. Moss grows all over the exposed part so you don’t know it’s all stone unless you row out to it, which no one…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHT SONG

    The evening shows no reluctance in enveloping the dregs of the day, leaving a cool breath of promise. The clouds build in enveloping the moon half pillow, half shroud. Tomorrow is an empty promise that will accept what we offer or nothing at all, save the rain it will hold back another day. One star…

    Lou Faber

  • 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. A reflection on Case 1 of the Shasekishu (Sand and Pebbles)

    Lou Faber

  • THE POET’S JOURNEY

    Between here and there is an infinite gulf, and finding yourself here yet needing to get there, what will you do when you discover that all you have is this pen?

    Lou Faber

  • DHARMA

    Buddha was asked, once, to describe all the dharmas while standing on one foot. “Hillel could do it,” the crowd said, “so you too should be so able.” Buddha smiled and said, “Hillel was a good friend, as was Jesus and Ishmael.” Buddha then gently sat beneath the Bodhi tree and was completely silent.

    Lou Faber

  • THE SKY

    The sky is the leaden gray that denies the sun and threatens the moon’s arrival. It presses down on the roofs of the talest buildings, wraps them in a depression those on the street below feel without need of looking up. This is a teasing sky- a drop here, there, until we know we are…

    Lou Faber