an old writer and his words

  • HOW MANY

    The better question, the onefor which there can beno real answer, ishow many couples of our agewould be together today,would never have gotten together,if we had cell phonesand tablets when we were young.The use of that word alonestrongly hints at whatI imagine that answer to be.A telephone, landlinethey now call it, required presence,required you to…

    Lou Faber

  • RECENT MEMORIES

    Looking through your wedding albumtwenty years after a midlife marriageyou are quickly awash in emotions.There is the joy of the moment, magnifiedduring the succeeding years, andthe rekindled memories of peopleand moments of the day forgottenor lost in the tumult that is attendanton any wedding, first or second.But there is a deep sadness as well,at those…

    Lou Faber

  • SO, JEAN-JACQUES

    I suppose, with some effort,I, too, could become oneof Rousseau’s savage menbut I have to ask myself if thatis a path that I would choose to walk.It isn’t the walking that give me pause,for that, as Rousseau said,enables contemplation and notmere thoughts flitting about,and is a means of meditationin my frantically moving world.And it isn’t…

    Lou Faber

  • PAUSE

    This morning a lone snowy egretperched stoically atop the leafless treerising out of the small preserve.Of what was it a harbinger, whatmessage was I needing, failing to hear?Was it in search of a dove amid endlessnews of wars still raging on,or was it repeating the unheard warningof what we had wrought in its onceedenic world,…

    Lou Faber

  • BASO’S ILLNESS

    If I ask youhow long weboth will live,how will you answer?The answeris simple, buthidden, for we bothwill live untilthe momentwe do not,and there isonly this momentanyway. A reflection on Case 36 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • FUKETSU’S SPECK OF DUST

    Sitting on the cushionwhen you think,there is only this thoughtand the next thought,and the cushionhas no purpose.When there isno thought, there isonly this momentand the cushionis the entire world. A reflection on Case 34 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • WINDOW 101

    I thought I heard the weatherman say there will be intermittent weather tomorrow. Perhaps I misheard, and in a rare moment of absolute honesty he said there will be intermittent periods when the forecast will be accurate tomorrow. That was probably it. It makes sense, and there is a fair chance it will prove to…

    Lou Faber

  • OUT OF HIDING

    The hidden joy of youth, and itsinevitable disappointment, isin finding that special person.Each time it is the birth of true love,eventually, save in rare circumstances,it is the death of an illusionand the aching pain accompanying the loss. The certainty of youthful emotionis a bondage that is most often inescapable,and there is no desire to leave…

    Lou Faber

  • SIMPLY MAGIC

    The magic of jazzis not what you think –there is nothing randomeven in the wildest, inthe acidest of solos. Cacophony is randomnessand the key to jazzis to see theinvisible logic,read the mind,be the mindof the musician. It is zen, but onlyif you stop searchingand just be in itsmoment.

    Lou Faber

  • MASTER MA IS UNWELL

    Yesterday is but a shadowand tomorrow an illusion.Do not wallow in the mudof attempted memory, donot sink in the mireof deluded anticipation.Stop, listen to the sunand the moon singof the Dharma, hearthe silence it bringsfor you are alivein this moment,and there isno other momentin which you can live. A reflection on Case 3 of the…

    Lou Faber