what else should I have done

Back from mountain.

Woman at prison.

Pneumonia and I stay home. 

Poem 133: The Summer Day

Who made the world? 

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

 

—Poem by Mary Oliver

I’ve never had any plans. But thank you for asking.

Mine is a meandering walk over roots and rocks up and back.

Mantras and prayers holding to walking stick.

The slow pathway to here. 

no (woman) no (cry)

 Someone asked

About hatred and

This administration 

Hatred, I said, 

Corrupts the soul

And what soul touches

(It’s a terrible time

A terrible time

Terrible time)

Terrible

(These people)

Terrible

inter alia (among other things)

Reading Sebastian Junger’s In My Time of Dying, How I came Face-to-Face With the Idea of an Afterlife. He goes with his daughter the next morning after the rain had wiped away their prior evening’s chalk drawings, thinking “We have no idea whether the universe even notices us much less cares.”

As an introvert solitary type this nescience on the part of the universe is fine with me. Ama Nesciri (love to be unknown) is as good a motto as any. One of my favorite practices for over fifteen years was to introduce myself yearly to a professor from the University of Pittsburgh when at a conference reception telling her my name. She seemed always annoyed saying “I know who you are” (then laughed) as we shook hands. I suspect it was a little game, but I never presumed anyone remembered me, did know my name or who I was.

I suspect, if such an anthropomorphism be allowed, the universe cares only for itself. Such an idea, of course, needs be modified by the proposition that “itself” includes everything in a wholistic internality of non-linearity and infinitude. We’re the ones who partialize and temporize while jockeying for preferred treatment and special acknowledgment.

We are in se and per se, in itself and by itself, as we find ourselves in this space and time we call life and the universe. It seems to take some thought and reflection to realize we are also pro alia (for another) and inter alia (among other things). Some have a difficult time grasping inter-relationality, much less a calling to be responsive and responsible for ‘others’ in the world. God help us if we are governed by such detached and non-responsive people.

Rain washes away our artwork and brief poems. 

Whole blocks of buildings collapse in an earthquake.

Civilizations disappear over long periods of time.

Inertia and entropy dance wide circles within and without our consciousness. An unchanging falling apart dizziness surrounds us as we step into and out of each particular situation befalling us.

Think nothing of it.

It is a large wave holding us under.

It is a shrugging terraform both inviting humanity and disinviting it with the nonchalance and insouciance of a self-involved entity.

For many among us, it seems to matter that we are acknowledged and cared for. That’s probably par.

For others of us, family is a sometimes thing. We are wary, worried, and full of wonder at what presents itself before us.

That we are enfolded, embraced, and cared-for is a slow awakening from a sluggish sleepiness that inches cautiously toward something dearer to us than we know. 

Rain, night, and an emptiness that (always) begins again and new, an invitation to new pastel chalk to mark creatively the ground.

hören heißt erkennen, was da ist.

I know how the story goes

    so why do you want me to tell you

because I want to hear it

    

    you want me to perform it

yes, to sound it here

dirty diapers

 I’ve always wondered 

about choppers 

and their riders, 

the blasting noise, 

the revving of engine 

when on Main Street 

of small town, 

the aggressive exposure 

obnoxiously loud

i'll see you, and raise you

 if I spend eternity

looking out through

what is there

i'd be happy

if there is a ‘god’

and that ‘god’ sees fit

to allow me in heaven

that’d be ok

if I am cast into hell

for obnoxious attitude

and consigned to a cell

why not

here’s my view --

I have no idea

no idea at all

so, let’s keep dancing

historian married to maine lobsterman

 Heather Cox Richardson is as solid as a Maine lobster boat.

My recommendation— give her a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/live/KnvXXAkgMqg?si=pZEPlERAU9Nv05ql

it’s not the place, it’s the space

 I used to sit

 in the back of the church

Where the nothing between

Where I sat

And the tabernacle

Was auspicious

I was content 

with emptiness

These days

I sit in no church 

And the nothing here

Is as sacred as sacred is

on corner stones

What is a lover but the accentuation of what is fondest, unseen yet, deepest, of that which is most intimate to us?

Deep in the valley, a beauty hides:
Serene, peerless, incomparably sweet.
In the still shade of the bamboo thicket
It seems to sigh softly for a lover.

--Ryokan (1758-1831)

Began reading Ryōkan fifty years ago. He didn’t mind. “Read me!” he’d say, “Go ahead, Read me!” 

He didn’t scare me. So, I read him. That’s what people who are unfamiliar with zen do not appreciate. A person of zen wants to be read. And they don’t care what you find. Peruse, look through, become absorbed in. Yes, read.

Ryōkan spent much of his time writing poetry, doing calligraphy, and communing with nature. His poetry is often very simple and inspired by nature. He loved children, and sometimes forgot to beg for food because he was playing with the children of the nearby village. Ryōkan refused to accept any position as a priest or even as a "poet." In the tradition of Zen his quotes and poems show he had a good sense of humour and didn't take himself too seriously.

Ryōkan's grave 

 

 

Ryōkan lived a very simple life, and stories about his kindness and generosity abound. On his deathbed, Ryōkan offered the following death poem to Teishin, his close companion:

裏を見せ 表を見せて 散る紅葉

うらをみせ おもてをみせて ちるもみじ

ura wo mise / omote wo misete / chiru momiji

Now it reveals its hidden side

and now the other—thus it falls,

an autumn leaf.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%8Dkan

As though a contemporary of Ryōkan, the poetry/songwriting sensibility of Jackson Browne addresses Ryōkan’s soft sigh: 

These Days

        (Song by Jackson Browne ‧ 1973)

Well, I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days

These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do for you
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
But it's so hard to risk another, these days
These days

Now, if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
Well, it's just that I've been losin' for so long

Well, I'll keep on movin', movin' on
Things are bound to be improving these days
One of these days

These days I'll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures

I had not forgotten them 

        https://youtu.be/apkw9zKcAg0     

Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest (thank you Francis Thompson), these poets and Kinder-spielen Seelen (child-playing souls) are in our backyards and imaginative corrals dancing with whimsy and delight through the quiet morning.

You come too! (Thank you Robert.)

est nunc

 Had a dream a few minutes ago

Would have to bicycle home

Would take four hours

Only two of daylight

Boxes of stuff to transport

Damn

Who writes such a dream

Who thinks this stuff up

I fooled em, I woke up

Dog on rug by bed

Lungs squamish

Cat at window

Attack mode for what’s on 

Sun porch roof

What’s with the prayer

Formula “as it was in

The beginning, is now

And ever shall be, 

World without end”

Tell me we grasp the concept

Of time, go ahead — shee-it —

The non-linearity of spiritual

Realization

The wholeness of our ignorance

ensō standing still at midnight in yard

 Night

Holds

No secrets

Listen

Do you hear

What is being said

unknowing is the closest intimacy -- “不知”是最大的亲密

Soon passing out of sight, the evanescence of things. 

Donned in simple garb,

I commune with the blooming bush,
With feelings peculiarly my own. 

Just this day, my hairs have begun to turn white:
Last year, the flowers looked redder than these.
Their tender beauty is going the way
Of the morning dew,
Their fragrant breath is evaporating
Into the evening breeze. 

Why must we wait for their wilting
And falling before we can realize
The evanescence of life?     

--Fayen Wenyi (885–958) 

We like the oncologist.

He and the chest X-ray confirmed pneumonia.

The Walgreen pharmacist put fourteen pills in an orange snap-top thingy, and the day goes on.   

Historically, the term "the old man's friend" (or "the friend of the aged") was coined by the famous Canadian physician Sir William Osler in the late 19th century to refer to pneumonia. Before antibiotics, pneumonia was a common cause of a relatively short and painless death, which allowed the elderly to pass away quickly rather than suffering through distressing, prolonged illnesses or cognitive decay. (AI)

Can’t say much about my cognitive decay, but pill number one has gone down my throat to converse with my compromised aspirated lung about tidying up and getting on with things now that the good doctor has thrown me out into a healing regimen.

John Wu, whose book Beyond East and West I read as a novice in 1965, has written elsewhere about Fayen

Fa-yen Wen-i was a native of Yü-hang in present Chekiang, born into a Lu family. He joined a monastery early in his childhood. At first he studied under the outstanding Vinaya master Hsi-chüeh in the famous Yü-wang Temple (named after Ashoka) in present Ningpo. A lover of learning, he not only studied the Buddhist scriptures but also steeped himself in the Confucian classics. Urged by a mystic impetus stirring in him, he went southward to Fuchou (Foochow) to seek instruction from a Ch’an master there, but his mind was not opened, and hence he took to the road again. As he was passing by the monastery of Ti-tsang, he was caught in a snowstorm, so that he had to stop over for a while. As he was warming himself by the stove, the Abbot Lo-han Kuei-ch’eng asked him, “What is the destination of your present trip?” “I am only a pilgrim,” he answered. “What is the meaning of your pilgrimage?” asked the Abbot. “I don’t know,” was the reply. “Unknowing is the closest intimacy,” came the cryptic remark of the Abbot. When the snow had stopped, he took leave of the Abbot, who accompanied him to the door, and asked him, “You say that the three realms are nothing but Mind, and all dharmas nothing but Consciousness. Now tell me, is that stone out there in the courtyard within your mind or outside your mind?” “Within my mind,” he replied. At this the Abbot said, “Oh you wanderer, what makes it so necessary for you to travel with a stone on your mind?” Fa-yen was taken aback by this remark, and, laying down his bag, he decided to stay longer with the Abbot in order to settle his doubts. Every day he presented his new views and new reasons to the master; but all that the master commented was, “The Buddha Dharma is not like that.” At the end of a month, Fa-yen said to the master, “I have exhausted my stock of words and reason.” The master said, “As regards the Buddha Dharma, everything is a present reality.” At the hearing of these words Fayen was greatly enlightened. 

Later, when Fa-yen became an Abbot, he used to say to his assembly, “Reality is right before you, and yet you are apt to translate it into a world of names and forms. How are you going to re-translate it into its original?” Learned as he was, he warned his monks against mere learning. Since Reality is right before us, it can only be perceived by direct intuition, and reflection and reasoning will only blindfold our eyes. 

--from Fa-yen Wen-i: Founder of the Fa-yen House, by John C. H. Wu, Chapter XIII, in: The Golden Age of Zen, Taipei : The National War College in co-operation with The Committee on the Compilation of the Chinese Library, 1967, pp. 229-245. 

The pilgrimage is from this to that. Then, encircling the kitchen island, back to sunporch, then up stairs for nap.

It seems silly to worry about a friend’s visit. No one’s ever home. No phone answered. Just this to that back to this.

Where will Robert Thurman be reborn? Where has Thich Nhat Hanh taken his nap this afternoon? What is Kuan-Yin listening to with her sweet attention? 

Yesterday was the anniversary of my father’s death. (Cheers!)

The blooming bush outside this window is communion.

With each.

And all. 

arpeggio

 rain

heavy through night

sings

tumbling

dawn 

slipping into the woods

Ryokan is right. 

Stop the bleeding by letting it flow.

It will run through, it will run out. 

When all thoughts

Are exhausted

I slip into the woods

And gather a pile of

Shepherd’s purse.

Like the little stream

Making its way

Through mossy crevices

I, too, quietly

Turn clear and transparent.

--Ryokan (1758-1831)

What else do we have to lose?

What else must be let go

Before clarity and transparency?

don’t tell me how you’ve always been

 what we say

determines what we see

space says: see through me

time: I am a circle, 

whole me (don’t hold me) tight

loosen your belief, free me

I do not plan to be here 

very long, so it is moot

no plans for the future

no memories in my knapsack

only this chair, these words

no one’s opinions reach me

dying is like that. The man

wasting away with Parkinson’s

in southern New England no

longer cares what others think

he’ll stay up, he'll fall, screw all

the futbol game is not over

I know how he feels, all opinions

and good intentions become tedious

don’t tell me how you’ve always been

tell me what you are . . . discovering now

can we believe in something we’ve never seen before

 Poetry sneaks around 

the two deceptions of

fact and fiction

And settles on furtive

glance at imagination

considering hue and cry

Surprising awareness

with something unseen 

something unknown before ..

One’s life without containment 

not one or the other

 Not everyone likes to think.

Some prefer to say they are pragmatic doers.

So be it. No fuss.

morning reflection

 

as true as bread

my father moved through dooms of love

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise 
offered immeasurable is

proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

Poem by E.E. Cummings 1894-1962, © 1940, 1968, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust from The Complete Poems: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, Edited by George J. Firmage.

sesshin de verano

 One hour into

Summer solstice —

Sun on bronze 

Window buddha

Behind visiting zen cats

अस्माभिः सह यत्-अस्ति तत् गणयामः, लेखानुरूपं च कुर्मः

a whole within a whole within a whole 

a hole within a hole within a hole

a nexus between horizontal extension 

same nexus between vertical extension

with that which counts between

with reminder to pray with presence

Let us count and account for what-is with us *

अस्माभिः सह यत्-अस्ति तत् गणयामः, लेखानुरूपं च कुर्मः *

small-c, large-see

 am I a catholic

(the question occurs)

yes, an unchurch(ed) catholic

no front door, no pews

no tabernacle, no holy water

no 'thank you father’ at door --

I am all-embracing, nothing

left out, related to everything

unskilled

 maybe i'm jealous

unable to steal

as well as he does

every day, every way

writer’s material

reading obituaries

they never stop

being written,

not as we will

but the tea candle is still aflame

 looking over to wood stove

where incense stick earlier burned

gone now, 

only invisible fragrence

all the mother sentient beings

A random reading of Buddhist scripture remembering Robert Thurman, from The Flower Adornment Sutra, an excerpt:

Although there are no analogies adequate to illustrate

the gateways of liberation possessed by all those bodhisattvas,

I now nonetheless use these analogies

to briefly explain their powers of sovereign mastery.

Foremost wisdom, vast wisdom,

genuine wisdom, boundless wisdom,

supreme wisdom, and especially supreme wisdom— 

 

Such gateways to Dharma as these have already been set forth.

This Dharma is so rare and so very extraordinary

that, if one who had heard it could recognize and approve of it,

could have faith in it, could accept it, and could praise it,

then being able to act this way would be most especially rare.

For any common worldly person

to believe this Dharma would be extremely rare. 

 

Only one who had diligently cultivated pure merit in the past

could then be able, by the power of past causes, to believe it.

Of all the many types of beings in the world,

there are but few who wish to seek the śrāvaka disciple vehicle.

Those who seek solitary enlightenment are fewer yet. 

 

Those going forth in the Great Vehicle are very rarely met.

But to go forth in the Great Vehicle is still comparatively easy,

for being able to have faith in this Dharma is rarer yet by twice,

even more so if one were to retain it, recite it, teach it to others,

cultivate it in accord with the Dharma, and genuinely understand it. 

 

Even holding a great trichiliocosm atop one’s head

for an entire kalpa without moving one’s body at all

would still not qualify as particularly difficult,

for being able to believe in this Dharma is what is truly difficult. 

 

Even standing in empty space for an entire kalpa,

holding up ten buddha kṣetras with one’s hands

would still not yet qualify as particularly difficult,

for being able to believe in this Dharma is what is truly difficult.

Even the merit gained from making gifts of delightful things

for a kalpa to beings as numerous as the atoms in ten buddha kṣetras 

 

Chapter 12

—

Foremost Worthy 367 

 

would still not qualify as especially supreme,

for the merit of one believing in this Dharma is the most supreme.

If one served as many tathāgatas as the atoms in ten buddha kṣetras

and did so for an entire kalpa, [his merit would surely be vast].

[However], if one could recite and retain this chapter, 

his merit would be most supreme, surpassing even the merit of that. 

 

At that time, after Foremost Worthy Bodhisattva had finished speak-

ing these verses, the lands of the ten directions shook and moved

in six ways. The light of the māras’ palaces became obscured, the

wretched destinies came to a standstill, and the buddhas of the ten

directions all appeared directly before him, whereupon they each

rubbed the top of his head with his right hand and, in a single voice,

they praised him, saying, “It is good indeed, good indeed that you

so quickly proclaim this Dharma. We all rejoice in accord with this.”

The End of Chapter Twelve

(--from, The Flower Adornment Sutra

The Great Expansive

Buddha’s Flower Adornment Sutra

An Annotated Translation of the Avataṃsaka Sutra

By Bhikshu Dharmamitra

With a Commentarial Synopsis

Of the Flower Adornment Sutra

Volume One

https://kalavinka.org/ebooks_NEW/Avatamsaka%20Sutra_Vol%201_English_ebk_08-19-23.pdf