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OCTOBER
There is an infinite space inside an atom, a massive void into which universes tumble and stars and planets are born. Outside, the maple leaves burning flame and crimson spiral to the lawn, which waits to receive them. Autumn is the season when the earth prepares to die and it is left to us to…
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PROPRIETY OF MORNING
There is a propriety of morning that appears denied to the rest of day, escaping Luna’s grasp the sun can sing in a voice deep in prayer and yet at play. The lives that quietly left in the night are balanced by the days measure of births but at dawn when the sun throws off…
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THIEF
The sea steals the edge of the shore, replacing it with something familiar and yet different. It is much the same with the waves of sleep that eat away at dreams leaving fractured memories and holes left to fill with desire and imagination. Walking along the shore of dawn and awakening, I feel time creep…
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IMPERMANENCE
In this moment there is, and can be, no other. And when the moment is gone it never existed, much as the next will never exist. So it is with us, a reflection of the ripple of the long sunk stone now nestling the bottom of the pond.
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TRANSFORMATION
There was a time, once, when the most everything was metaphorical. That was before the great metamorphosis when everything was suddenly malleable. No one was quite certain just what happened. Most thought it was in the dead of night when they, and most everyone else was firmly in the grip of Morpheus, who was, all…
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LOVER
There is a moment just after the prior moment, when the ticking of the clock on the nightstand is amplified, reverberating off the skylights, when the heat of your body is a blanket from which I never wish to emerge.
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ETERNITY
In a clockless world all life is an approximation and clear boundaries evaporate like the mist off a morning pond. In that world, this moment seeps into the next, night becomes day, only to return again. The Buddha knew this, for in his clockless world all that existed was the moment, an instant that was, as…
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BUDDHA NATURE
The infant girl smiles with infinite knowledge, present wholly in this moment, knowing no other, her eyes speaking with the wisdom of all who have gone before her. In those eyes your heart hears stories of universes waiting to born, collapsing inward, naked singularities, and compassion. She doesn’t offer to teach you, but you cannot…
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STONE
Off the pier in Santa Barbara a young child throws a stone into the quiet ocean. Later an imperceptible wave slips quietly into Yokohama harbor. In Big Sur a Monarch butterfly slips from her chrysalis on tentative gossamer wings and takes flight. Later, still, I stand on the Boston Commons and cast a momentary smile.
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SOTO ZEN
The gong reverberates, its depth hangs in the air, fades like a slowly retreating army. The zafu is at once coarse and caressing, nestling me as I settle down into becoming one with the earth, the zabuton, a fluid translator. The mokugyo’s rhythm lies deep within my chest. The incense settles on my tongue, an acrid sweetness,…
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an old writer and his words 