-

WRITTEN
It was written for all to seebut went unseen as no oneentered the portal willingly,never sufficient curiosityto offset the foreboding.Everyone knew what it saidbut knowing and seeing areseparated by an unbridgeable chasm.It remained an imposed solitude,an isolation inherent in location,implicit in a world spinningoff its moral axis, time extendedand compressed, an irregular pulse.It was written…
-

HOFUKO’S POINT OF ATTAINMENT
You may ask many thingsof any teacher you meetbut the wisest of themwill only offer youunending questions.When you look to themto point you to the Waythey are doomed to failurefor your feet obscurethe Way, and it is onlyby looking withinand down through your legsand feet and toesthat you can see the way A reflection on…
-

KYOZAN PLANTS HIS MATTOCK
In your endless searchfor enlightenment,the best course, the only courseis to stop looking. It may strike you,unexpected or it mayarise without your seeingas you continue your practice. You say there are many Buddhasand you are correct, but I saythere is but one Buddha and Iam also correct, and you arethat one Buddha and I amthat…
-

INVASION
The light has fadedand the wetland lies underits mantle of faint starlight. The birds are there, wecan hear them, but our eyesdo not allow us to see them,despite our desire to havemore time with them. They can see us, in our well lit homes, staring out,but they do not want particularly to see us. To us they…
-

KEMBO’S TRANSMIGRATION 鐵笛倒吹 六十七
Awakening in the morning when you first see the sun and the dew resting on the leaf which eye are you using. When you stare into the mirror through what eye do you see, and what eyes stare back at you. When you see the deer lying in the road which eye do you use.…
-

NEWS
The most interesting thing about visiting websites from foreign news services is that so many offer content in English and how deaths that occur locally seem to invoke the same sadness, horror, belated honor, and that local disasters take precedence over our own disasters not merely because it happened there and not here, but because…
-

BALANCE
It is a precarious balance, really, more and exercise in tottering and hearing than in standing still. Some prefer stasis, others, I included, find it leads inevitably to a loss of energy, to an entropy from which it is difficult to escape. I don’t walk along the edge of the precipice, but I do peer…
-

LOOKING BACK FORWARD
Between now and eventually lies all of history. We are unable to see it though it lies in our field of vision. That’s the problem, we only know how to look backward. We are barely able to see where we are. It isn’t that we don’t want to be here, merely that here is difficult…
-

WE CAN FIX THAT
He is only four years old, has decided he will be “an X-ray doctor” in a few years because he wants to see broken fingers and legs, but if he sees bad things he can take them out and throw them in the trash. He is more perceptive that even he can imagine for without…
-

ON THE ROAD TO NIRVANA
S: What are you doing, for heaven sake? H: Isn’t it obvious, I’m searching for Nirvana, for enlightenment. S: You silly fool, it’s right behind you! H: (turning suddenly) It is not, I would certainly see it. S: You might think so, but it is still right behind you!…