Walking in an open field
when you come to a gate
which is inside, which outside?
If you straddle the gate
there is no inside,
there is no outside,
there is only a gate
with you balanced upon it.
Ask yourself
on which side
will you fall?
A reflection on Case 22 of the Book of Equanimity ( 従容錄, Shōyōroku)
Sitting in stillness, the silence
is at first shocking, deafening
in a way unimagined but there.
Within the lack of sound lies
a thousand sounds you
never heard in the din of life.
You hear the young monk at Senso-ji
approach the great bell and pull
back on the log shu-moku, straining.
You hear the laugh of school aged
children hand in hand walking through
the Temple grounds as pigeons gather.
You hear the cat, sitting at the foot
of Daibutsudan, staring out
and the deer waiting at the gate.
You hear your breath and that
of a million others as they sit
on their cushions sharing what is.
Publshed in As Above, So Below, Issue 9, August 2022
https://issuu.com/bethanyrivers77/docs/as_above_so_below_issue_9
By hour six, the plane was just a lumbering beast dividing the sky, halfway from God knows where to nowhere special. His body cried for sleep but he knew he had to deny it. That much he had learned from prior trips. For when he landed, made his way painfully slowly into the city, it would be early evening when he arrived at his hotel. He knew he needed to be on the edge of exhaustion. Only that way could he grab a meal from the 7 Eleven down the block, and finally get to sleep, reasonably fresh in the morning. It would be a long day. Each day in Tokyo was a long day of endless meetings and negotiations. It was mind numbing, but he was paid well to suffer it. And he knew that on his last day in the city he would have time to board the subway for Asakusa. There he would wander slowly down the line of stalls, to the great gate of Senso-ji Temple, its giant lantern shedding no light, and peer at the Buddha Hall in the distance. There would be school children in neat uniforms, always hand in hand, and pigeonss, flocking around them and anyone who looked gaijin, easy marks for photos and handouts. And the orange tiger cat would huddle at the base of the nearby Buddha seeking enlightenment. For that hour or so he was in a different world. The giant city melted away. His thoughts grew placid as he placed his incense into to giant earthenware jokoro then washed its smoke over his face and shoulders. He bowed to the young monk carefully writing the prayer sticks. He stood silent at the foot of the Buddha Hall, a conversation no one could hear, one that everyone here was having simultaneously. Time does not yield, and as it ran thin, he headed back to the subway knowing his fortune without purchasing it for 100 yen. A simple fortune really, a return visit on his next trip to Tokyo and maybe a side trip to Kyoto, and as the icing on his taiyaki, a trip to Nara, to again wander the grounds of Todai-ji and commune with the deer at first light, in the shadow of the Daibutsu. On the flight home he thought of the moments in Buddha’s shadow, the resounding of the great bell. He smiled recalling the red bibbed jizo, knowing they gave up Buddhahood to help those like him, still lost on the path. He is saddened knowing he will soon be back in his world, the daily grind, this trip shortened, as all return trips are. And when he lands, goes through Immigration and customs, when they ask if he has anything to declare, he may say “just a moment of kensho.”
They crowd the stalls, searching
amid what the Japanese would have to call
tchotchkes if they were Jewish.
Few bother to see the great Buddha
peereing out of the Buddha hall
questioning their judgment.
They could buy their fortunes
for a mere hundred yen coin, but they
believe it better spent here,
This the marketplace forms
a phalanx that makes a visit
to Senso-ji a forced march
through waves of humanity who
have no need of jizo, those are for
the cats and children who parade
through the gate, hand in hand,
and stare up at the statues of Kannon
still teaching and offering compassion.
I speak clearly, concisely
in an ancient, long forgotten
tongue that none understand.
I tell my tale, leaving out
nothing, a summoner
in a deaf world, whispering
of coins, pulled from
an empty pocket and cast
at your feet, soundless.
I point to signs, lettered
in my careful hand, without
meaning, cryptic to you
You urge me to trust
in your god even as
you deny me my own
who sits by the gate
wrapped in rags, waiting
to for rain to melt the pillar.
First published in Glimpse, Issue 54, Fall 2021
In entering, do you arrive
or are you leaving.
In departing do you leave
or are you arriving.
Can the gate answer
or does it choose
to remain silent.
The mountain shouts
the answer but only
the river can hear it.
A reflection on case 30 of the Dogen’s Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye)
If you will mark your gate
what word will you use,
what for the door, what
for the window?
The gate knows quite well
what it is, as to door and window
and need no marking.
Even the fool knows
through each you
may enter the house,
but even the wise man
cannot tell you
how the house may enter you.
A reflection on case 46 of the Iron Flute Koans
listen carefully
to the sound of the great bell
before being struck
cat stares at Buddha
pigeons flock to ignore him
people see nothing
there is no city
inside the large gate, only
Buddha and pigeons
When you look in the mirror
are you real, is your reflection real?
Be careful what you say,
for if I look into that mirror
and see you, is the you I see
anything other than real?
When you go through the gate
you say “I am exiting”.
When I follow you through the gate
I say “I am entering”.
Are we both liars?
If you ask who I am
I will have you close your eyes
and walk behind you,
or I may step to your left
and take your right hand.
If you are perplexed,
I will ask you, do the four
gates open into the city
or out to the world beyond,
and if I stand still sideways
under a gate
in which direction
am I headed?
an old writer and his words 