• BUDDHIST ENTOMOLOGY

    One of the hardest things about being a Buddhist are the insects. Setting aside their sentiency, insects are a true test of our ability to honor the first of the four vows, for while moths can be captured in cupped hands, the karmic dilemma of how to deal with a spider that refuses to crawl…


  • UNLOCKING

    There are two keys to it, really the first, and easier, is to make a well with your hands, that would need be not all that deep, just enough to hold your thoughts as you work. The second is to add just the right amount, too little and it is dry and doesn’t hold together,…


  • AFLOAT

      Dreams are the gentle sea across which we float as night embraces us. This is the preferred view, but in the stormy dark our dreams turn violent tossing us against thoughts we have long suppressed. It is how we row, how we ride he swells, searching for the calm on the horizon that allows…


  • PHOENIX

    A Phoenix may rise from the ashes, but you and I have seen the aftermath of the flames and all that rises are our memories and dreams. We lack both wings and a certain amount of faith, for ashes are all that is promised and in the end we are no more than dust avoiding…


  • MEMENTO VIVERE

    The moment arrives suddenly and appears at your feet, threatening to trip you into the hole of time that marks the edge of this moment as it once did the one before this. If you stand perfectly still You may move forward with the easy grace of enlightenment.


  • INFINITE LOOP

    Once the story ends we simply start another story, and repeat the act in varying detail with each repetition, until we run out of words.


  • MIND THE GAP

      Tomorrow none of this will matter. Yesterday it was only a promise, unfulfilled. Today slipped by and I failed to notice it. It is how things go in life, living in the gaps.


  • MU MONKAN

    Walking on the road today, I didn’t see the Buddha and thus had no need to kill him. I did find what I thought to be a dog’s Buddha nature, but it proved to be nothing- ness, so I walked on through the gate that led exactly nowhere. This evening it rained and I picked…


  • NOW

    If the time is now how will we know it? And if we miss it how will we know what the consequences are? The better question is whether it matters, for if we can be in each moment to the extent possible, then nothing is missed and every moment is now and there can never…


  • TIME OUT

    She is fond of saying that time is on our side although we both know that time does not take sides, is incapable of action, is passive in passage. It is something of which we may never have enough but we are certain no one has more than we in this moment. She cannot imagine…