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THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL 鐵笛倒吹 六十九
Standing at the window looking down on the street is the passing man enlightened? Call out this question to him. If he looks upward and says yes what do you know of his enlightenment? Looking at a flower is it different than its seed. If you hold a seed in your hand what can you…
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WINTER MEMORY
As I stare out the window and watch the snow slowly build on the limbs of the now barren sugar maple, painting it with a whiteness that bears heavily giving the smaller branches a better view of the ground in which their fruit of the summer lies buried. I am forced to wonder if the…
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As a young child I recall my mother justifying all manner of disasters based on miscommunication, mostly hers, by saying, “Does Macy’s talk to Bloomingdale’s?” I didn’t care, no one did and the excuse never worked as far as I can tell, and I now know from experience, that of course they talked to each…
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SETTLING
Settling into perfect stillness, each of us in our brown robes on brown chairs, benches cushions, note his entry is somewhere between the thundering of a forgotten storm or the garbage trucks crawling slowly down the street. His gray-blue shirt and jeans flash by. He is large in every dimension, even his breathing nice and…
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BODHIDHARMA’S “VAST AND VOID”
You want holy teachings boiled down, synthesized digestible in bites so dine on the holes nothing, emptiness is sustenance enough look at me, at a window as you do a mirror no knowing, a familiar face but whose? the face will depart yours or his you will awaken to endless absence learn no thingness overflowing…
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STARING
A crane stands placidly staring through the window as we earnestly attempt to imitate him, hoping he will honor the effort if not the result. The master is graceful and we are far less so, and out of the corner of my eye I see on the crane what could be a smile, or as…
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MAGIC
The money wasn’t really real then, it came in a box with a board, dice and property deeds, and it was in colors, one for each denomination, (kind of like and Canada and other countries). It was fun having a lot of it until the first time I snuck some out of the house and…
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WITHOUT WITHIN
When you peer through the glass are you looking out, or are you looking in, and how would you know which is true, and does it matter. When you walk through a gate are you entering or leaving. If you ask where the gate is located, you cannot find where you are going, for all…
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MORNING
Each morning she looks at the small window in her bedroom, just after the sun has broken the horizon and the lake is set ablaze. Each morning she sees the small boat, its oars resting on the gunwale, dark against the orange water. She never asks how the boat got there, why it stays there,…
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MAL ANNEE
On the anniversary of the start of a war one feels almost compelled to speak to its horrors, its cause, its effect. But we live in an age where wars are plentiful, when peace is the exception and war seems to loom around every corner. So on this anniversary I watch the snowy egret stare…
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an old writer and his words 