an old writer and his words

  • PEBBLE

    In this moment there is and can be no other. And when it 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.  

    Lou Faber

  • ISAN’S QUESTION 鐵笛倒吹 二十九

    Gather each single leaf from the stones of the garden and place it neatly in a bushel. It will take weeks or months to gather them all even if you have windless days, but this is important work. When the last leaf is gathered take up the bushel and throw the leaves into the garden,…

    Lou Faber

  • IN A MOMENT

    Tomorrow, unlike yesterday which no longer exists, everything is promised and nothing guaranteed. There is no eventuality in the present moment and this is where we are forced to live.

    Lou Faber

  • MIND THE GAP

      Tomorrow none of this will matter. Yesterday it was only a promise, unfulfilled. Today slipped by and I failed to notice it. It is how things go in life, living in the gaps.

    Lou Faber

  • EVENT UALLY

    A week from this Thursday something will happen that no one could have ever foreseen. This is the beauty and the horror, at once, of our limited vision, afraid to see the present although it is all that is clearly within our visual field. Instead we look back into the shadows where memory substitutes for…

    Lou Faber

  • KEMBO’S TRANSMIGRATION 鐵笛倒吹 六十七

      Awakening in the morning when you first see the sun and the dew resting on thee leaf which eye are you using. When you stare into the mirror through what eye do you see, and what eyes stare back at you. When you see the deer lying in the road which eye do you…

    Lou Faber

  • NOT NOW, BUT SOON

    If not that moment perhaps the next or the one after that or did we miss it, in our desire to grasp and capture it and somehow make it ours. We are used to such failures, they are commonplace, and anyway there is always something new following, so we must get ready, for we don’t…

    Lou Faber

  • JOSHU’S DWELLING 鐵笛倒吹 七十

      If a poor man offers you the finest diamond do you take it, and what of the gift of a crust of bread from the wealthy man. Each gift, in its way, is worthy of rejection. Once I grasped at great thoughts – now I can forget my own name and wonder whose face…

    Lou Faber

  • MINDFUL MINDLESS NESS

    The difference between before and after is the moment we can never seem to grasp. In the time it takes to read the definition of evanescence, its meaning is lost to history. That, ultimately is the failure of thought and logic, for the process is so overwhelming what we process is turned to dust in…

    Lou Faber

  • PAX ET VERITAS

    When you suddenly stop and freeze all that is going on around you, when silence replaces the sounds of life, you can finally hear yourself not think. This is the peace that always seems to lurk just out of reach, out of sight. Let it embrace you if you dare.

    Lou Faber