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THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA’S WISDOM
You want to ask the masterhow you will know a Buddhaif you come across one.The master will tell youthat he will not describe the faceof the Buddha you mightcome across for you willknow the Buddha whenyou see him if youare ready, thenthe master will addgo look in the mirrorand tell me what you see. A…
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ON AGING
It is not the aging that is hard, he said. Aging is easy, you don’t have to do anything except keep breathing, eating and sleeping when you can. No, aging is not hard at all. What is hard, he added with a grimace, is looking in the mirror and realizing that your body has betrayed…
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FALLING APART
In my minds eye, whichfortunately for it cannot hopeto see the mirror, I am sixteen.No, cancel that, at sixteen Iwas still chubby to be kind.So let’s make me 18, evenif I had almost no hair thanksto the U. S. Air Force, but Iwas as fit as I would ever be.No, that won’t work either,for I…
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READING PAUL MULDOON
Reading Paul Muldoon this afternoonI thought of you for no reason.It wasn’t your birthday, notthat you celebrate them where you are,nor the anniversary of the day you died.And it certainly was not becauseI was reading about Ireland sinceI never imagined I had Irish blood, andyou never went there, and when I didI didn’t know you…
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DISENG-AGING
Christ, I have gotten old,and every day it hits home againin ways I wouldn’t have imagined.I mean M*A*S*H beganmore than half a century agoended 40 years ago, and the actorsI imagined as friends are mostly goneor are so old they are unrecognizable.And Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moonrecently turned 50 and it seemsonly yesterday…
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THE WEIGHT OF MOURNING
The weight of mourning defies precise measurement,and all of the rules of mathematics fail in an attempt.Grief rejects being placed on scales, there is nevera moment of pure equilibrium, only a teeteringthat always threatens to bring it all down in a heap.A million who are nameless and faceless is an agonyand yet eighty thousand with…
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SEPPO’S POISON SNAKE
When you lookin the mirrorwhat do you really see?If you say yourselfyou are blind.If you say nothingyou have graspedthe heart of the Dharma.If you shatter the mirroryou have found Nirvana. A reflection on Case 24 of the Book of Equanimity 従容錄, Shōyōroku
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YOUNGER MAN BLUES
Going through files of photosI occasionally see a younger manwho is someone I should know. He doesn’t appear often, and Iam fairly certain I was neverthe photographer whenthose photos were taken. He is rather short, often seemsto wear a hat, is otherwiserather nondescript. Still, I would like to talkto him, as I suspect we wouldagree…
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SHE
You were a young beautyto my middle aged eyesthat knew, despite the mirror’slies, that I too retainedsome large measure of youth. Even that is now behind us,and I can no longer denythe mirror’s sad truth,my face unable to belie whatI knew time had wrought. And yet your beauty hasnot diminished, rather grownas does a fine…
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FACING
The face in the mirrorwas surprisingly older today,and I can’t imagine that Iwill ever look that old,at least not for quite some time. I wanted to ask him howhe had aged so badly, but knewthat it would be bad mannersto comment on his appearance,so I smiled and he in returm. I suppose one day I…
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an old writer and his words 