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A FLUTE PLAYED BACKWARD : THREE CASES (100 – 98) FROM TETTEKI TŌSUI
ISAN’S TEN FOOT SQUARE 鐵笛倒吹 百 Ten thousand words what do they mean – with which will you compose a poem for the wall of your room. Leave the room, does the poem remain? Enter the room is this the same poem? Write them on the wind with a pointed leaf, that is a fine…
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ON THE ROAD
On the road I found Tao. I held it and gazed at it from every angle, but seeing nothing placed it back on the road. On the road I found a sutra. I held the scroll and gazed at its strange letters, but reading nothing placed it back on the road. On the road I found…
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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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NARA PARK
I Ducks skitter across Ara-ike pond like a perfectly thrown skipping stone. Two sit and preen on large rocks left as pedestals. A spider dragging its prey along the weathered wood railing of the bridge pauses for a moment to contemplate ducks, then moves on consumed by hunger. II Several deer languish among the wizened…
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ZEN
He has just turned two. He sits on my lap one hand clapping mine, for each of us a moment of Zen in ways no one can understand, since neither he nor I do. His laugh promises something, a future of moments like this, and yet never the same. “It is our river,” his smile…
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WALKING AMONG SAND AND PEBBLES: SHASEKI-SHU
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. FINDING A DIAMOND 沙石集 二 There are endless paths…
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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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TOKYO
Walking the grounds of Senso-ji Temple, I look among the statues, half expecting Buddha or Kannon Bosatsu to appear, but only a pigeon answers my expectations. Lighting a joss bundle and placing it into the burner I imagine for a moment that I am zainichi, but the giggles of a flock of uniformed schoolgirls reminds me cruelly…
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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 