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SAVANNAH DREAMS
Slide between the sheetsexhausted after a day of walkingthe streets of this old city.This is a city of squares, statuestoo many to fully recall, eachone’s history unknown to most,and with the slowly falling rainto remain unknown to us.Despite its age and great beautythis is a tourist city, one whererestaurants don’t take reservationsknowing their tables will…
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JUST LIKE THAT
“And just like that,” he said. “Just like that,” she replied. “Are you certain, I wouldn’t want to go off half cocked?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t almost certain, would I,” was her retort. “But almost certain isn’t absolutely certain,” he noted. “As you well know, nothing is absolutely certain…
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JOSHU’S WASH THE BOWL
In the early morningwelcome the sun,as the day retreatswelcome the sun.When you are walkingalong the garden pathwhich foot is forwardand which footis behind? A reflection on case 67 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye)
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A RETURN SOMEDAY
Some day I need to returnto Tokyo and walk its streetslistening for the soundtrackthat Haruki Murakami requiresof the city, bebop jazzin Shinjuku, classical whenwandering Asakusa and Senso-ji,and rock on the streets of Shibuya. I have often been there, butmy soundtrack was thatof horns and the clatterof a pachinko parlor, orthe pitched giggles of younggirls walking…
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FINITE LOOP
As it turns out, lifeis an ongoing process of accretionand deconstruction, of growthand eventual shrinkage. I started with 20 teethI am told, and got to 32,only to fall back to 23thanks to orthodontia and wear. We start with 270 or morebones, but we knit that numberdown to 206, or in my case under200, the orthopaedist’s…
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MINDFUL(L)
The Buddha said that any task you doif done mindfully is a sort of meditation.We assume he said it, we’ve been toldhe did, but no one I know was anywherenear that bodhi tree, so we take it on faith.When it comes to things like choppinglarge quantities of onions, or roastingcoffee beans I totally get it,…
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RETIREMENT
He would arrive as I was still strugglingto convince the dog that he didn’t needto drag me around the neighborhood,that he knew the backyard well enough. I’d lose the argument in the end, thatwas a given, but he’d concede meenough time to wolf down breakfast,and I’d hear the small door in the wallopen and then…
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YOKUSAN’S LECTURE 鐵笛倒吹 六十三
If you go to a lecture and listen carefully will you become wise? If you go to a hundred lectures are you a hundred times wiser? Where did the teacher find wisdom, did he sit in endless lectures. Watch him most carefully is he not wise with sleeping, and when eating, when he walks to…
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MEDITATION
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,…
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VICTIM OF TECHNOSTANCE
He says, “it’s like learning to walk again after you’ve had a stroke, you know you can but nothing seems to work quite right when you try.” She says, “you just upgrading from one model iPhone to the newer model, so don’t overplay it, it isn’t a matter of life itself you know. And if…
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an old writer and his words 