• THE FROG

    I can still smell the formaldahyde,see the frog pithed to the boardas I went about dissecting it,taking copious notes on whatI found, identifying organs,both of us hidden in a cornerof our fourth grade classroomso the other students didn’tfeel like they had to vomit. This Yom Kippur, even thoughI no longer practice the faithof my youth…


  • SENSO-JI

    They crowd the stalls, searchingamid what the Japanese would have to calltchotchkes if they were Jewish. Few bother to see the great Buddhapeereing out of the Buddha hallquestioning their judgment. They could buy their fortunesfor a mere hundred yen coin, but theybelieve it better spent here, This the marketplace formsa phalanx that makes a visitto…


  • FOUR ZEN HAIKU

    myself is no selfno self is universalinfinite being emptiness surroundsall forms are illusorythis is samadhi compassion aboundsalways out of your sightuntil you live it dharmas teach nothingcontain infinite knowledgejust stop looking


  • REFUSE TO RECALL

    We have now forgotten whatit is like to take flight, to seek,to finally find a true freedomfrom an always grasping land. Once we did it out of necessity,lives incomplete, prisonerswho committed no crimesave those of thought and faith. Now we only claim to admirethose who seek what weonce did, watch them withmock awe, but deny…


  • GENDER?

    So why, pray tell, does my gender even matter, it isn’t like we will ever. meet, and let’s face it, there is a fluidity now which calls binary thinking absurd, so we’ll go with whatever you choose, so long as you realize I am all about compassion and relieving the world’s suffering – thought that…


  • KEYS

    He sits, suited in black, with 88 keys at his command, and we fall silent. He opens the lock of joy, the lock of sadness, the lock of elation, the lock of tears, the lock of laughter, the lock of darkness, the lock of light, the lock of surprise, the lock of compassion, the lock…


  • The spider wandered around the corner of the ceiling and wall of the bathroom, one she called a daddy longlegs, although most spiders of my acquaintance have rather long legs using my proportions as a basis for comparison, and it was my task to deal with it. It was harmless, as are most of his…


  • MOURNING

    You never know how the news will arrive you are just certain of its arrival. You know it on some level, even as the event is happening, but that doesn’t blunt the piercing tip of the blade that finds the soft spot in you and cuts deeply. You hoped for a miracle for her, for…


  • DHARMA GATE

    He sits, suited in black, with 88 keys at his command, and we fall silent. He opens the lock of joy, the lock of sadness, the lock of elation, the lock of tears, the lock of laughter, the lock of darkness, the lock of light, the lock of surprise, the lock of compassion, the lock…


  • IMPENDING DEPARTURE

    I will be going soon and this is what I would leave you: I would leave you my dreams of a world at peace, where compassion comes as an expectation not a surprise, a place where the arrival of the sun is a source of joy for with it and the rains, you, no one,…