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:
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.
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.
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
