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LANDING
She sends us a map showing on which tribe’s land we are now living. This is not something we have thought about, not something we want to think about, for that would demand that we are the usurpers, the horde whose pogrom was ultimately successful, and that is a face that refuse to see in…
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THEM, AGAIN
They say that you shouldnever approach or toucha small bird, lest it he shunned,perhaps to death, by your scent. I’ve never been one to listento any “them” with whom Icannot argue face to face,and so seeing the small bird on the ground curledin its nest, staring upat the branch from whichshe parachuted groundward I scoop…
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HOLDING ON
There comes that one moment for each who liveswhen he steps out onto the silent stage,speaks such of the lines as he recalls, givesa half-intended bow, and in his rage curses his lost youth like over-aged wine,that is now a shadow of its promiseand he knows that somehow this is a signnot of what he…
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Bodhidharma’s Vast Emptiness
When teacher and studentsit face to face,mat to mat, looking deeplyone at the other,which is the teacherand which is the student? You are wrong.There is no teacher,there is no student,there is only the silenceof the momentin which all dharmais made obvious. A reflection on Case 2 of the Book of Equanimity
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WRITING MY STORY
With the stroke of a pen,they enabled me to write the story,gave a framework on whichI could hang all mannerof dreams and assumptions,inviting a search I neverquite got around to making. I wandered the beachesof Estoril in my dreams,stalked the avenues of Lisbon,looking for a familiar face,but found only ghosts. With the stroke of a…
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BODHIDHARMA’S VAST AND VOID
You want holy teachingsboiled down, synthesizeddigestible in bites so dine on the holesnothing, emptinessis sustenanceenough look at me, at a windowas you do a mirrorno knowing,a familiar facebut whose the face will departyours or hisyou will awakento endless absence learn nothingnessoverflowing void A reflection on Case 1 of the Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record)
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REAL TIME
He can spend hours on the wooden bench in the small square in the center of the village. There he is but a statue, staring up at the giant clock face that looms over the square from the turret of the Village Hall. He likes to watch the long hand, arrowlike, make its slow, but…
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NEEDLE
She tells me I should rest,that I need convalescent time,but I want to tell her, “why,it isn’t like they stuck a needlein my eye, so why rest?” butit actually is just that, but the restof my body is none the worsefor the wear on my face,and it hurts less when Iam doing something otherthan thinking…
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IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
It is all well and good to believethat you will know it when you find it,that it will be so obvious you could not miss it. You’ve been down that road before,and on several occasions were certainthat you’d found it in her face, or hers,in her smile, or her laugh, or oneof their soft touches…
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THE EDGE OF DREAMS
On the razor edge of dreamsthe periphery of consciousnessa face appears, and I am left to wonderwho this person is, who he might be.At first he is a childwith a pixie cut, a bowl placedover the head, the bangs cutwithout considering the face peering outand others peering in.But, as sleep washing the lastsands of consciousness…
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an old writer and his words 