an old writer and his words

  • WHERE?

      Take the pencil in hand and grasp it firmly and flex and extend your wrist until loose. On a clean sheet of paper mark a small X which will become of great importance shortly. Look around you in all directions, starting as close to yourself as possible and expanding out as far as the…

    Lou Faber

  • BEING

    “Be in the moment,” he says repeatedly, imagining this is what the teacher should say. I want to tell him there is no other possible moment I could be in, but having to try to find the words instantly takes me out of this and every other possible moment. It is said that when the…

    Lou Faber

  • THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA’S WISDOM

    If you wish to find true wisdom where do you begin to look? Everywhere you look is the wrong place, for true wisdom is everywhere. If this confuses, first look for yourself. Where will you find yourself? If you say in the mirror, all will laugh for the mirror is nothing more than reflective glass.…

    Lou Faber

  • DIRECT ROUTE

    He would rather be from somewhere. Where he is or is not going matters very little to him now, he will be where he will be, will go where he needs or wants to go or is taken, and when there, that is where he should be, so being there is no problem. But until…

    Lou Faber

  • FROM HERE TO

      He finds it hard to believe that no matter which path he chooses, and he has chosen so very, very many over time, each path seems always to lead him to one particular place. The place always seems the same, here, though he knows it should be different each time he arrives. It frustrates…

    Lou Faber

  • KEEP THE NIRVANA

    He was never one to go searching. It took up too much time. It certainly took far more effort than the results usually warranted. And there wasn’t anything in particular he wanted to go in search of. She said she was searching for ecstasy. He said he could buy it downtown, but it had grown…

    Lou Faber

  • HUI CH’AO ASKS ABOUT BUDDHA

    When you look in the mirror do you hope to see yourself, and who is that face that stares back? If you turn out the light, are you still there in the mirror, or has the illusion of you disappeared? If you crack the mirror, do you feel the pain of the scar across your…

    Lou Faber

  • KEMBO’S ONE ROAD 鐵笛倒吹 八十四

    As you walk along a road do you know where it begins or where it will end and what lies along it. Perhaps the road is a twisted loop with neither beginning or ending, but if asked where you are on the road you are always here. A reflection on Case 84 of The Iron…

    Lou Faber

  • SELFLESS

    The true self is no-self, and this self is not self, but illusion and delusion, where delusion is enlightenment, and nothing is as it seems for nothing is and only seems and so it is with self, so let go of this self and no-self will appear, though it was always there.

    Lou Faber

  • TO BE, OR

    The beauty and the difficulty of being in the moment is the realization that there is no moment in which to be. When you ask what time it is, I can only answer by referring to what time it is not, for time must be relative to that which no longer exists, or has yet…

    Lou Faber