WITH KNOWING

With knowledge comes something
but I cannot remember what
my mother told me it was, or
perhaps it was a teacher
who said it, but I can’t hope
to tell which one it was, I
cannot remember some
of their names or in what grade
it might have been said.
I don’t think it was in college
or graduate school since by then
it was assumed we knew
what came with knowledge.

So I am left to look around me,
and see what the knowledgeable
have wrought and consider that
perhaps with knowledge comes
chaos for we have quite enough
of that, or a lack of compassion,
we’re big on that one, so maybe
with knowledge come a hidden
key to making this all right, but
I cannot for the life of me find it.

HOFUKO’S POINT OF ATTAINMENT

You may ask many things
of any teacher you meet
but the wisest of them
will only offer you
unending questions.
When you look to them
to point you to the Way
they are doomed to failure
for your feet obscure
the Way, and it is only
by looking within
and down through your legs
and feet and toes
that you can see the way

A reflection on Case 63 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)