To speak of hours of practice
is not as good as 10 minutes
engaged in practice.
So, too, an hour speech
on practice pales
with even a moment of silence.
But to be silent and also
not practice is to turn
your back on the path
and blind yourself
with your stick.
A reflection on Case 77 of the Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye) Koans
In your endless search
for enlightenment,
the best course, the only course
is to stop looking.
It may strike you,
unexpected or it may
arise without your seeing
as you continue your practice.
You say there are many Buddhas
and you are correct, but I say
there is but one Buddha and I
am also correct, and you are
that one Buddha and I am
that one Buddha as well.
A reflection on case 14 of the Book of Equanimity (SHôYôROKU 従容錄)
Of course there is something I ought
to say, moments like this require it,
it goes without saying, painfully.
I practiced lines for hours, rehearsed
in my dreams for weeks, knew
for years I’d be rendered mute.
My tongue swells, threatening
to escape my mouth or take refuge
deep within my esophagus.
Your silence is only compounding
my anxiety, how can I, a man
of words, be rendered silent
by the thought of speaking to you,
of telling you that I finally now
joyously have what I feared I wouldn’t ever.
A wife and lover deserves
better than this.
I’ve made a practice
which feels more like a demand,
that each day I take a few
moments or more and stop
whatever else I was, or
should have been, doing
to write a poem.
There are days, perhaps this
one where it seems more
a short bit of prose to which
I have added line breaks
despite the protest
of the words, condemning them
to bear the mockery, and
others when I take a poem,
ignore its inherent rhythm
and pass it off as prose,
that insult remembered,
the words plotting revenge
but lying low, waiting
for the perfect moment
to destroy a poem I know
is worthy of publication.
They were not optional in our family,
once a week, half an hour, that and
at least 20 minutes daily, the youngest
got the choice of times.
He quit after a year, his sister
was three years in and went on another
and I was eight years staring
at the 88 keys, so many of which
would never get used, useless
as were the pedals I couldn’t reach
at first and rarely needed later.
It was upright, as I was supposed
to be, but only was in sight
of my teacher, and I thought
Bill Evans had it right, leaning
over the keys insuring that they
wouldn’t make an escape.
I stopped when my parents realized
how much they had spent
on what they would never enjoy
and I would as soon forget.
Today I again took up the brush,
carefully mixed the sumi-e ink
and with hand poised over a sheet
of anticipating rice paper waited,
knowing that the moment for a stroke
was imminent but not yet at hand,
and I dare not force it for brush
painting is a practice that cannot
be compelled, a gentle merger
of idea, brush, ink and paper,
and if any are missing, a sadness
that can only be irreversible.
Today the brush considered the ink
and decided it was not a good day
and so I cleaned it carefully, set it
aside with the block of ink,
and rolling the rice paper, promised
it, myself, that we would repeat
this exercise until the moment was
right and the image was ready to appear.
A wise Buddhist teacher
once told me that anything you do,
if you do it mindfully, can be
a form of meditation, and I have
taken this into my practice,
albeit with mixed success, but that
is one reason they call it practice.
Walking silently, following
your breath in and out, aware
of your feet, the earth, the sky
is definitely meditative.
Chopping onions, carefully drawing
the knife thorough the layers
creating neatly incised bits
is certainly meditative.
Sitting by a pond watching
the sun slowly set it ablaze
as the breeze ruffles the surface
is absolutely meditative.
But folding laundry, no matter
how mindfully I approach the task
always and quickly morphs into
a mindless search for the missing sock.
Why do you climb the mountain
and seek entry
into the small cabin.
Why do you give up
your home in the valley.
You should be turned away
for if you seek
a higher understanding
you demonstrate to all
there is no depth
to your practice.
He is four today. He’s been practicing being four, so it is somewhat second nature. But he made a decision. Next year he will be five. He was going to be 27 next year, but decided that can wait another year. I asked him why he was delaying, he said, “You get better presents when you are four or five.” I confess his logic, but wonder what I should do with the tie and cardigan I bought for his next birthday?
He is never certain what to do on days
like this one, when the winter takes
a particularly nasty turn, the temperature
hovers at utter emptiness, and the wind
elects to try to enfold everything it can reach
in a coat of frost, that bleaches life away.
He walks each day, through the nearby park
if the weather is the least bit cooperative,
through the neighborhood when not, where
at least he can take a small shelter from the wind
in the shadow of houses closed up tightly,
life walled away within, smarter, he imagines
than he is, his fingers ill-gloved, slowly losing
all feeling, but this is his practice, something
he does because it requires doing, heeding
an edict from an unspoken voice. And later
emerging from a hot shower, feeling limbs
restored, he glances at the weather in hopes
the next day will be kinder, and slow in coming.
an old writer and his words 