When you come
searching for a key
to unlock the door
to Nirvana
I will ask you
to complete
a simple task.
All you need to do
is go to the ocean
and select the one
drop of water different
from all of the others.
A reflection on Case 26 of the Book of Equanimity, 従容錄, Shōyōroku
With knowledge comes something
but I cannot remember what
my mother told me it was, or
perhaps it was a teacher
who said it, but I can’t hope
to tell which one it was, I
cannot remember some
of their names or in what grade
it might have been said.
I don’t think it was in college
or graduate school since by then
it was assumed we knew
what came with knowledge.
So I am left to look around me,
and see what the knowledgeable
have wrought and consider that
perhaps with knowledge comes
chaos for we have quite enough
of that, or a lack of compassion,
we’re big on that one, so maybe
with knowledge come a hidden
key to making this all right, but
I cannot for the life of me find it.
The hawk sits on a branch
looking up at the sky, knowing
this is perfection, lifting up
chasing a cloud, floating lazily.
The butterfly flits from plant
to plant, tasting the fruits
that nature has given her,
perfection in a single moment.
The cat sleeps on a rocker
the breeze rustling her coat,
until waking for dinner
which appears at her request.
We spend hours searching
for the keys to heaven, hoping
to insure what comes after this
life, but so often not living it.
The magic of jazz
is not what you think,
there is nothing random
even in the wildest, in
the acidest of solos.
Cacophony is randomness
and the key to jazz
is to see the
invisible logic,
read the mind,
be the mind
of the musician.
It is zen, but only
if you stop searching
and just be in its
moment.
She is long departed I imagine,
and she would have had no
memory of me given the number
who passed through her room
in the decades she stood imparting
the sort of knowledge that was
somehow tucked away, not
forgotten, for it bubbled forth
years later, the aha moment.
I could not forget her, why
perhaps she was a key
to my passwords, the first
question you have to answer
to reset a site, to reset your life,
“Who was your most memorable
teacher?” and it was she among
all the others without doubt.
You said you’d leave a key
under the mat on the front stoop,
or was it taped atop the light fixture
just to the right of the door jamb top?
Well I checked both places
and there was no key to be found,
so perhaps it slipped out, got kicked
and someone absentmindedly took it
and saved it meaning one day
to return it, or tossed in in the nearest
garbage dumpster they could find,
or is wearing on a chain around their neck.
I did pause to consider that this key
could be a metaphor for your feelings
and that perhaps I was victim of my own
dream of a love that was never to be.
But that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?
First published in Dreich , Issue 10, Autumn 2020 (Scotland)
Mrs. Weiskopf lived in a small cottage
Mrs. Weiskopf taught piano in her living room.
Mrs. Weiskopf had no first name, even
checks were to be made payable to Mrs. Weiskopf.
Mrs. Weiskopf grew suddenly old, some said,
to full fit into her name, no one could
remember her ever being young.
Mrs. Weiskopf said I must always find Middle C,
that everything starts there.
Mrs. Wieskopf was not pleased when I said
that Middle C was key number 40 on my piano
and there was no middle key, only
a gap between E4 and F4.
Mrs. Weiskopf looked at me sternly
and ended my lesson early that day.
Mrs. Weiskopf was a great teacher.
I think of her each time I sit down
and place the doumbek on my lap.
How long have you searched
for the ultimate truth, the key
that will unlock
the door to enlightenment?.
Would you know such a key
if it were handed to you?
You go about asking teachers
if they would give you the key,
but the wisest of the sages
would gladly tell you
that you need no key,
for the door you seek
so very hard to enter
does not keep you outside
of the place where your truth
can be found, for it is always
with you if you would just
give up searching and see it.
If you ask the teacher
where you can find the key
to enlightenment, what
do you do when the teacher
stares back at you in silence.
If the teacher asks you
where he can find the key
to enlightenment, do you
tell him that he possesses it,
and if you do, will he
simply stare back in silence.
Stop and consider,
have you both answered correctly,
or is the silence the key?
The search will be endless
the answer at once obvious
and incapable of being found.
You seek direction to it,
certain the right teacher
holds the key
to the critical gate,
inside which all of the Dharma
sits waiting for you.
If the teacher asks you
how many people live
in a distant city you
have never visited,
how will you respond.
The answer is the key and you
already hold it in hand.
A reflection on Case 5 of the Book of Equanimity
an old writer and his words 