Sutras and Poems

SUTRAS 

PURIFICATION                           
All the ancient twisted karma

From beginningless greed, hatred and ignorance

Born of my body, mouth and thought

I now confess openly and fully.

REFUGE

When knowing stops, when thoughts about who we are fall away, vast space opens up, our kinship with every living thing is revealed, and joy appears. Its power comes from the ocean of essential nature. It is beyond explanation ­– we just accept it with respect and gratitude. Anything that gets in the way of understanding this is a cause of suffering and something to refrain from. Moment by moment, thought appears, the earth appears, we appear. When we touch each bit of life against this great heart, we find we cannot reject anything. With our virtues, our failures, and our imperfections, this is the body we take refuge in; this is our offering. By their nature, vows are not things we hold perfectly; vows are the bridge we build between the spacious world and the things we do everyday. Underlying these vows is a compassion for everything that has the courage to live.

I take refuge in Buddha

I take refuge in Dharma

I take refuge in Sangha

Buddham saranam gacchami

Dhammam saranam gacchami

Sangham saranam gacchami    

Buddham Dhammam Sangham

THE FIVE REMEMBRANCES

Shakyamuni Buddha advised: These are the five facts that one should reflect on often.

Ino:       I am of the nature to grow old.

All:      There is no way to escape growing old.

Ino:       I am of the nature to have ill health.

All:      There is no way to escape ill health.

Ino:       I am of the nature to die.

All:      There is no way to escape this.

Ino:       All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.

All:      There is no way to escape being separated from them.

Ino:       My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

All:      My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

SHO SAI MYO KICHIJO DHARANI

No mo san man da moto nan

oha ra chi koto sha sono nan

To ji to en gya gya gya ki gya ki

un nun 

Shifu ra shifu ra hara shifu

ra hara shifu ra 

Chishu sa chishu sa

chishu ri chishu ri 

Soha ja soha ja

sen chi gya shiri ei 

So mo ko

Ancient chant to ward off misfortune:

Veneration to all Buddhas!

The incomparable Buddha-power that banishes suffering

Om! The Buddha of reality, wisdom, Nirvana!

Light! Light! Great light! Great light!

With no categories, this mysterious power

Saves all beings; suffering goes, happiness comes, Svaha!

THE HEART OF PERFECT WISDOM SUTRA                                          

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, practicing deep Prajnaparamita

clearly saw that all five skandhas are empty,

transforming all suffering and distress.

“Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form;

form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form;

sensation, perception, mental reaction, consciousness are also like this.

Shariputra, all things are essentially empty—

not born, not destroyed; not stained, not pure; without loss, without gain.

Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, perception, mental reaction, consciousness;

no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;

no color, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of thought;

no seeing and so on to no thinking;

no ignorance and also no ending of ignorance,

and so on to no old age and death and also no ending of old age and death;

no suffering, cause of suffering, cessation, path, no wisdom, and no attainment.

Since there is nothing to attain, the bodhisattva lives by Prajnaparamita,

with no hindrance in the mind; no hindrance, and therefore no fear;

far beyond delusive thinking, right here is Nirvana.

All Buddhas of past, present and future live by Prajnaparamita,

attaining Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

Therefore know that Prajnaparamita

is the great sacred mantra, the great vivid mantra,

the unsurpassed mantra, the supreme mantra,

which completely removes all suffering.

This is truth, not mere formality.

Therefore set forth the Prajnaparamita mantra.

Set forth this mantra and proclaim: ‘Gone, gone, into the gone beyond, completely into the gone beyond, awakening, at last!’”                                    

Gaté Gaté Paragaté [C  C  Dm  F]       

Parasamgaté [Dm  F]

Bodhi Svaha! [C  F  C]

*Alternate: “Gone, gone, really gone, into the cool, oh, Mama!”

[Translation by Philip Zenshin Whalen]

The Heart Sutra was probably written in the first century CE. in the area surrounding the Hindu Kush, in what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India. The word heart refers to its place at the core of Buddhist teachings. The word sutra has come to designate scripture or discourse, a wise saying, a teaching of the Buddha or an interpretation of those teachings. Prajnaparamita is a compound Sanskrit word. The first half, prajna is made of two words, “pra”, which means “before,” and “jna” which means “to know.”  It is generally translated as “wisdom.” Paramita is a word that distinguishes this kind of wisdom as the highest form, transcendent wisdom, the wisdom that leads to enlightenment. Various translations include, “perfection,” “that which has gone beyond,” and “that which leads us to the other shore.” Prajnaparamita is also the name of the bodhisattva (enlightened being) who embodies this wisdom. Avalokiteshvara is a name that means “one who looks down,” also translated by the Chinese as “one who looks down on the cries of the world.” This bodhisattva is said to have been able to appear in both male and female forms and in later generations she became Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. Shariputra is known as one of the wisest of the Buddha’s disciples. Avalokiteshvara counsels Shariputra to go beyond suffering into the emptiness at the heart of the universe. Avalokiteshvara, sitting in deep meditation, has seen through to the emptiness that is the nature of all things. Avalokiteshvara explains the emptiness of the five skandhas—the ways we experience reality—and goes through all categories of phenomena that seem to exist separately from one another. At the end, Avalokiteshvara presents a mantra, or incantation, as a practice of this transcendent wisdom.

[Dedication]

GRATITUDE

Buddha nature pervades the whole universe,

existing right here now.

The Buddha and his teachers and his many sons and daughters turn the Dharma wheel to show the wisdom of the

stones and clouds;

We give thanks to all the ancestors of meditation

in the still halls,

the unknown women, centuries of enlightened women,

grandmothers, grandfathers,

great sequoias standing in groves, salmon swimming upstream,

the immense oceans with kelp forests and coral reefs,

red tailed hawk reeling in the sky, field mice in the grass,

mountains and rivers without end, mountains and rivers without end.

Let wisdom go to every corner of the house.

Let people have joy in each other’s joy.

ALL BUDDHAS

ALL Buddhas throughout space and time  [C  B  F  C]

ALL Awakened Beings, Great Beings  [C  F  C]

The Heart of Perfect Wisdom [C  G  F  C]

PRAISE SONG FOR MEDITATION — Hakuin Ekaku

All beings by nature are Buddha,

just as ice and water are the same;

apart from water there is no ice,

apart from beings no Buddha.

How sad that people ignore the near 

and search for truth afar,

like someone in the midst of water 

crying out in thirst,

like a child of a wealthy home

wandering among the poor.

Lost on dark paths of ignorance

we wander through the six worlds;

from dark path to dark path –

when shall we be freed from birth and death?

Oh, the meditation of the Bodhisattvayāna

to this the highest praise:

devotion, repentance, training, the many paramitas,

all have their source in meditation.

Those who sit in meditation even once

wipe away beginningless crimes –

where are all the dark paths then?

Paradise itself is near.

Those who hear this truth even once

and listen with a grateful heart,

treasuring it, revering it,

gain blessings without end.

Much more, those who turn about,

and bear witness to self-nature –

self-nature that is no nature –

go far beyond mere doctrine.

Here effect and cause are the same;

the Way is neither two nor three;

with form that is no form, 

going and coming, we are never astray;

with thought that is no thought

singing and dancing are the voice of the Law.

How boundless and free is the sky of samadhi,

how bright the full moon of wisdom.

Truly is anything missing now?

Nirvana is right here, before our eyes;  

this very place is paradise,

this very body, the Buddha.

BODHISATTVA’S VOW – Torei Enji  

When I look deeply

into the real form of the universe,

everything reveals the mysterious truth of the Tathagata.

This truth never fails:

in every moment and every place,

things can’t help but shine with this light.

Realizing this, our ancestors gave reverent care

to animals, birds, and all beings.

Realizing this, we ourselves know that our daily food,

clothing and shelter are the warm body and beating heart of the Buddha.

How can we be ungrateful to anyone or anything?

Even though someone may be a fool,

we can be compassionate.

If someone turns against us,

speaking ill of us and treating us bitterly,

it’s best to bow down:

this is the Buddha appearing to us,

finding ways to free us from our own attachments

the very ones that have made us suffer

again and again and again.

Now on each flash of thought

a lotus flower blooms,

and on each flower: a Buddha.

The light of the Tathagata

appears before us, soaking into our feet.

May we share this mind with all beings

so that we and the world together

may grow in wisdom.

ENMEI JIKKU KANNON GYO (The Ten Verse Kannon of Timeless Life)

Kanzeon                                  

Praise awakening         

We are born with awakening

We grow with awakening

We grow with awakening, the Way, and our companions

Eternity is full of joy, the self is pure   

Morning’s thought is Kanzeon           

Evening’s thought is Kanzeon

Thought after thought rises in the mind

Thought after thought is the mind

(Sung — 3 times. Melody by Richie Domingue) 

Kanzeon Kanzeon  [Bb]

Kanzeon Kanzeon  [Bb  F  Bb]

KAN ZE ON

NA MU BUTSU

YO BUTSU U IN

YO BUTSU U EN

BUP-PO SO EN

JO RAKU GA JO

CHO NEN KAN ZE ON

BO NEN KAN ZE ON

NEN  NEN JU SHIN KI

NEN NEN FU RI SHIN

(Sung — 3 times)

Kanzeon Kanzeon

Kanzeon Kanzeon 

[Dedication]

REMEMBRANCE

All living things are one seamless body

And pass quickly from dark to dark.

We remember you who cared for us and are gone.

You who are ill, who are at war, who are hungry or who are in pain

May you be at peace and have rest.

[Gm  C  Dm  C]

Ino:  We especially dedicate our service to:

All:  [Speak names of personal dedications  ]

(Sung — 3 times)

Cross on over  [Gm] 

Cross that river  [Bb  C] 

Set us free.   [C  Gm  C  Gm  C]

ANCESTOR DEDICATION
Let us unite with:

All:

The Ancient Seven Buddhas, Dai Osho

Shakyamuni Buddha, Dai Osho (“shakyamuni buddha”)

Mahaprajapati Gautami, Dai Osho (“maha prajapati gotami”)

Vimalakirti, Dai Osho (“vimala kirti”)

Nagarjuna, Dai Osho (“naGar juna”)

Bodhidharma, Dai Osho

Dajian Huineng, Dai Osho (“da-jien hway-nung”)

Shitou Xiqian, Dai Osho (“shr-toe she-chien”)

Mazu Daoyi, Dai Osho (“ma-tsu dow-yee”)

Pang Yun, Dai Osho (“pong yun”)

Pang Lingzhao, Dai Osho (“pong ling-jao”)

Linji Yixuan, Dai Osho (“lin-gee yee-shuen”)

Dongshan Liangjie, Dai Osho (“dong-shan liang-jieh”)

Liu Tiemo, Dai Osho (“liu tieh-mo”)

Dahui Zonggao, Dai Osho (“da-hway zong-gao”)

Dogen Kigen, Dai Osho

Hakuin Ekaku, Dai Osho

Kogaku Soen, Dai Osho

Chioro Nyogen, Dai Osho

Hannya Gempo, Dai Osho

Daiun Sogaku, Dai Osho

Hakuun Ryuku, Dai Osho

Mita Soen, Dai Osho

Koun Zenshin, Dai Osho

Robert Aitken, Dai Osho

Richie Domingue, Dai Osho

All founding teachers, past, present, future, Dai Osho.

Let true Dharma continue, Sangha relations become complete.

All Buddhas throughout space and time,  

All Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas,  

The Great Prajna Paramita  

END OF SERVICE DEDICATION

Infinite realms of light and dark convey the Buddha Mind;

Birds and trees and stars and we ourselves come forth in perfect harmony;

We recite our sutra for the many beings of the world;

In grateful thanks to all our many guides along the ancient way.

GREAT VOWS FOR ALL

(Sung — 3 times. Melody by Richie Domingue)

I vow to wake all the beings of the world [C  Em  F  C]

I vow to set endless craving to rest         [C  Em  F  C]

I vow to walk through every wisdom gate   [C  Em  F  Dm]

I vow to live the great Buddha way  [C  Dm  Fmaj7  C]

THE FOUR BODHISATTVA VOWS

(Sung — 3 times. Melody by Richie Domingue)

All beings one body, I vow to save them all

Blind passions spinning round and round, I vow to put them down

Knocking on countless Dharma doors, I vow to walk on through

The unsurpassed Buddha Way, I vow to live it every, every, every, every day.

END OF DAY CLOSING CEREMONY ANCESTOR WORDS

1.  I beg to urge you everyone:

Life-and-death is a grave matter,

All things pass quickly away;

Each of us must be completely alert:

Never neglectful, never indulgent. 

2.  I say to you Subhuti, view all conditioned things like this:

A star at dawn,

A bubble in a stream,

A cataract in the eye,

A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,

A flickering lamp, a phantom, a dream.

END OF DAY DEDICATION

Peacefully, humbly

The ship stars travel, the grass hunches down to earth,

The demons take their rest.

And we call the protectors to smile over us,

As the work in darkness goes on until dawn. 

GATHAS:

First Steps of the Day


As I take my first step 


the floor meets my feet perfectly
With gratitude to the earth

I walk in freedom

Turning on the Water


As I turn on the water

my body’s substance pours before me

Clouds, oceans, rivers, and deep wells


all support my life

Washing Dishes


Each dish I wash


is my most beloved child

Each movement contains


boundless awareness

Flushing the Toilet


My body’s waste is compost

Down the drain it goes!

returning to the earth

Preparing Food


Earth, air, water, and sun
all live in this food I prepare
Many hands join my hands 
to bring nourishment to all beings

Walking Meditation


My mind may go in a thousand directions

But now I walk in peace

With each step upon the path
a lotus flower blooms

Seated Meditation


Sitting in the present moment,
 I just breathe


With each in-breath – I am nourished

With each out-breath – I let it all go

Going to Sleep

Falling asleep at last


I vow with all beings


to appreciate the dark

and rest in the vast unknown

Meal

We honor awakening, the way and our companions

and are grateful for this food

the work of many hands

and the sacrifice of other lives

Jesuit Prayer Before Meals

We have food while some have none

We are each other while some are alone.

Long Readings & Recitations

SONG OF THE GRASS HUT – Shitou Xiqian

I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.

When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.

The person in the hut lives here calmly,

Places worldly people live, he doesn’t live.

Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.

A Mahayana bodhisattva trusts without doubt.

Will this hut perish or not?

Not dwelling south or north, east or west.

A shining window below the green pines-

Just sitting with head covered all things are at rest.

Living here, there is no more working to get free.

Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.

Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instructions,

Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.

Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,

If you want to know the undying person in the hut, 

From THE RECORD OF LINJI

Followers of the Way, as I look at it, we’re no different from Shakyamuni. In all our various activities each day, is there anything we lack? The wonderful light of the six senses has never for a moment ceased to shine. If you could just look at it this way, then you’d be the kind of person who has nothing to do for the rest of your life.

If you don’t have faith in yourself, then you’ll be forever in a hurry trying to keep up with everything around you, you’ll be twisted and turned by whatever environment you’re in and you can never move freely. But if you can just stop this mind that goes rushing around moment by moment looking for something, then you’ll be no different from the ancestors and buddhas. Do you want to get to know the ancestors and buddhas? They’re none other than you, the people standing in front of me listening to this Dharma talk!

If you want to be no different from the ancestors and buddhas, then never look for something outside yourselves. A moment of pure light in your mind – that is the Dharmakaya, the Essence-body of the Buddha lodged in you. A moment of undifferentiated light in your mind that is the Samboghakaya, the Bliss-body of the Buddha lodged in you. A moment of nondiscriminating light in your mind –that is the Nirmanakaya, the Transformation-body of the Buddha lodged in you. These three types of bodies are you, the person who stands before me now!

What is it, then, that knows how to preach or listen to the Dharma? It is you who are right here before my eyes, this lone brightness without fixed shape or form – this is what knows how to preach the Dharma and listen to the Dharma. If you can see it this way, then you’ll be no different from the ancestors and buddhas. As I see it, there are none of you incapable of profound understanding, none of you incapable of emancipation.

Followers of the Way, this thing called mind has no fixed form; it penetrates all the ten directions. In the eye we call it sight, in the ear we call it hearing; in the nose it detects odors, in the mouth it speaks words; in the hand it grasps, in the feet it runs along. Basically it is a single bright essence, but it divides itself into these six functions. And because this single mind has no fixed form, it is everywhere in a state of emancipation.

Just get so you can follow along with circumstances and use up your old karma. When the time comes to do so, put on your clothes.

If you want to walk, walk. If you want to sit, sit. But never for a moment set your mind on seeking buddhahood. Why? A person of old said, “If you try to create good karma and seek to be a buddha, then Buddha will become a sure sign you will remain in the realm of birth and death.”

Followers of the Way, the Dharma of the buddhas calls for no special undertakings. Just act ordinary, without trying to do anything particular. If, wherever you are, you take the role of host, then whatever spot you stand in will be a true one. Then whatever circumstances surround you, they can never pull you awry. You don’t have to strive for benefits, benefits will come of themselves. Even if you’re faced with bad karma left over from the past, or the five crimes that bring on the hell of incessant suffering, these will of themselves become the great sea of emancipation.

As I see it, there’s no Buddha, no living beings, no long ago, no now. If you want to get it, you’ve already got it – it’s not something that requires time. There’s no religious practice, no enlightenment, no getting anything, no missing out on anything. At no time is there any other Dharma than this.

Followers of the Way, this lone brightness before my eyes now, this person plainly listening to me — this person is unimpeded at any point but penetrates the ten directions, free to do as you please in the threefold world. No matter what environment you may encounter, with its peculiarities and differences, you cannot be swayed or pulled awry. In the space of an instant you make your way into the Dharma-realm. If you meet a buddha you preach to the buddha, if you meet an ancestor you preach to the ancestor, if you meet a hungry ghost you preach to the hungry ghost. You go everywhere, wandering through many lands, yet never become separated from your single thought. Every place is clean and pure to you, your light pierces the ten directions, the ten thousand phenomena are a single thusness.

If you want to be free to be born or die, to go or stay as one would put on or take off a garment, then you must understand right now that the person here listening to the Dharma has no form, no characteristics, no root, no beginning, no place you abide, yet you are vibrantly alive. All the ten thousand kinds of contrived happenings operate in a place that is in fact no place. Therefore the more you search the farther away you get, the harder you hunt the wider astray you go. This is what I call the secret of the matter.

The way I see it, one shouldn’t be averse to anything. Suppose you yearn to be a sage. Sage is just a word, sage. There are some types of students who go off to Mount Wu-t’ai looking for Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom. They’re wrong from the very start! Would you like to get to know Manjushri? You here in front of my eyes, carrying out your activities, from first to last never changing, wherever you go never doubting – this is the living Manjushri!

Your mind that each moment shines with the light of nondiscrimination – wherever it may be, this is the true Samantabhadra, the bodhisattva of action. Your mind that each moment is capable of freeing itself from its shackles, everywhere emancipated - this is the method of meditating on Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. These three act as host and companion to one another, all three appearing at the same time when they appear, one in three, three in one.

Followers of the Way, here and there you hear it said that there is a Way to be practiced, a Dharma to become enlightened to. Will you tell me then just what Dharma there is to become enlightened to, what Way there is to practice? In your present activities, what is it you lack, what is it that practice must mend?

What are you looking for? This person of the Way who depends on nothing, here before my eyes now listening to the Dharma – your bright-ness shines clearly, you have never lacked anything.

From ZEN MIND BEGINNER’S MIND – Shunryu Suzuki

In the beginner’s mind there is no thought, “I have attained something.” All self-centered ideas limit our vast mind. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature. Without realizing the background of Buddha-nature, everything appears to be in the form of suffering. Suffering itself is how we live, and how we extend our life.

To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means that your mind pervades your whole body. When your practice is calm and ordinary, everyday life itself is enlightenment. If you do not lose yourself, then even though you have difficulty, there is actually no problem whatsoever. When your life is always a part of your surroundings - in other words, when you are called back to yourself, in the present moment - then there is no problem. When you

start to wander about in some delusion that is something apart from yourself, then your surroundings are not real anymore, and your mind is not real anymore.

Once you are in the midst of delusion, there is no end to delusion. To solve the problem is to be part of it, to be one with it. We do not seek for something outside ourselves. We should find the truth in this world, through our difficulties, through our suffering. Mindfulness is, at the same time, wisdom. It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. Our true nature is beyond our conscious experience. Firm conviction in the original emptiness of your mind is the most important thing in your practice. Even though you think you are in delusion, your pure mind is there. To realize pure mind in your delusion is practice. If you have pure mind the delusion will vanish. This is to attain enlightenment before you realize it.

True nature is watching water. When you say, “My zazen is very poor,” here you have true nature, but do not realize it. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped. The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense. Zen practice is to open up our small mind. So concentrating is just an aid to help you realize “big mind”, or the mind that is everything. That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind. Even though waves arise, the essence of your mind is pure. Waves are the practice of the water. Big mind and small mind are one. As your mind does not expect anything from the outside, it is always filled. A mind with waves in it is not a disturbed mind, but actually an amplified one. In one sense our experiences coming one by one are always fresh and new, but in another sense they are nothing but a continuous unfolding of the one big mind. With big mind we accept each of our experiences as if recognizing the face we see in a mirror as our own. With this imperturbable composure of big mind we practice Zazen.

From Four Quartets – T.S. ELIOT

What we call the beginning is often the end,

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from. And every phrase

And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,

Taking its place to support the others,

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,

An easy commerce of the old and the new,

The common word exact without vulgarity,

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together)

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,

Every poem an epitaph.

And any action

Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat

Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them.

The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree

Are of equal duration. A people without history

Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern

Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails

On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel

History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

RELYING ON MIND – Seng-t’san

The Great Way is not difficult;

it just refrains from picking and choosing.

Without yearning or loathing,

the Way is perfectly apparent,

But holding onto even a hair’s breadth of difference

separates heaven and earth.

To see the Way with your own eyes,

quit agreeing and disagreeing.

The battle of likes and dislikes--

This is the disease of the mind

Misunderstanding the great mystery,

people labor in vain for peace.

Mind is perfect like vast space

nothing lacking and nothing extra.

It’s just selecting and rejecting

that make it seem otherwise.

Don’t pursue worldly concerns,

don’t dwell passively on emptiness;

Be at peace in the absolute oneness of things,

and confusion vanishes all by itself.

Suppressing activity to reach stillness

just creates agitation

People who don’t live in oneness

bog down on both sides –

Rejecting form, they get stuck in it,

seeking emptiness, they turn away from it.

The more people talk and ponder,

the further they spin out of accord

Bring gabbing and speculation to a stop

and the whole world opens up to you.

If you want the essence, get right to the root;

chasing reflection, you lose sight of the source

Turning the light around for an instant

takes us beyond becoming, abiding, and decay.

The changing phases, the ups and downs,

all result from misunderstanding.

There’s no need to seek the truth –

just stop worshiping your opinions!

Don’t live within dualism,

take care not to pursue it

As soon as you have right and wrong

the mind is lost in confusion

The two exist because of the one

but don’t cling to oneness either.

  If your mind is not disturbed with such things

the ten thousand things are all flawless

In this flawlessness there’s nothing at all,

no disturbance, no mind.

The subject disappears with its objects

objects vanish without a subject.

In one emptiness, the two are not distinguished,

and each contains in itself all the ten thousand things.

The Great Way is by nature calm and large hearted,

not easy, not difficult,

But quibbling and hesitating,

the more you hurry, the slower you go.

Holding onto things wrecks your balance,

inevitably throwing you off course,

But let everything go, be genuine,

and the essence won’t leave or stay.

Accept your nature, accord with the Way

and stroll at ease, free from annoyance.

Tying up thoughts denies reality,

and you sink into a stupor of resistance

Resisting thoughts perturbs the spirit!

why treat what’s yours as foreign?

If you want to enter the One Vehicle,

don’t disdain the six senses.

Not disdaining the six senses,

that’s enlightenment itself.

Since things aren’t different in essence,

it’s stupid to hanker and cling.

Trying to control the mind by using the mind,

isn’t that a great error too?

Delusion creates calm and chaos,

enlightenment entails no good and evil.

Every opposition under the sun

Just comes from your thoughts.

Like dreams, illusions, spots before your eyes—

why bother grasping at them?

Gain and loss, right and wrong—

let them go, once and for all.

If you don’t fall asleep,

dreams cease on their own.

If you don’t conjure up differences

the ten thousand things are all of one kind.

In the essential mystery of oneness,

eternal and ephemeral are forgotten.

Seeing the ten thousand things in their oneness

we return to the origin where we have always been.

Without grounds or criteria,

we can’t be judged or compared.

Still or active, nothing moves,

and active or still, nothing ceases.

Here in the harmonious, equanimous mind

all effort subsides.

Doubt is completely gone,

and what’s true remains.

Nothing hangs in the mind,

there’s nothing to remember;

Empty, luminous, genuine,

the mind is at ease.

In the world of things as they are

there is neither self nor other.

To reach accord with it at once

just say, “not two!”

Without duality, all beings are the same

not a single one excluded.

Here hurry and delay have no bearing;

an instant is ten thousand years.

Here and not here don’t apply either.

everywhere is right before your eyes.

One in all, all in one - If only this is realized,

no more worrying about being holy or wise!

Relying on mind, there is no separation,

with no separation, you can rely on your mind.

This is where words fail—

no past, no future, no present.

Poems, Prayers & Quotations

DREAMS – Mary Oliver

All night

the dark buds of dreams

open

richly.

In the center

of every petal

is a letter,

and you imagine

if you could only remember

and string them all together

they would spell the answer.

It is a long night,

and not an easy one  —

you have so many branches,

and there are diversions —

birds that come and go,

the black fox that lies down

to sleep beneath you,

the moon staring

with her bone-white eye.

Finally, you have spent

all the energy you can

and you drag from the ground

the muddy skirts of your roots

and leap awake

with two or three syllables

like water in your mouth

and a sense

of loss — a memory

not yet of a word,

certainly not yet the answer —

only how it feels

when deep in the tree

all the locks click open,

and the fire surges through the wood,

and the blossoms blossom.

SUNSET – Rainer Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors

which it passes to a row of ancient trees.

You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,

one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,

not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,

not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing

that turns to a star each night and climbs—

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)

your own life, time and standing high and growing,

so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,

one moment your life is a stone to you, and the next, a star.

[Translated by Robert Bly]

From THE WISHING BONE CYCLE of the Swampy Cree

All the warm nights

sleep in moonlight

keep letting it

go into you

do this

all your life

do this

you will shine outward

in old age

the moon will think

you are

the moon

 [Translated by Howard Norman]

UNTITLED – Antonio Machado

Last night, as I was sleeping,

I dreamt  — marvelous error! —

that a spring was breaking

out in my heart.

I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

Oh water, are you coming to me,

water of a new life

that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,

I dreamt — marvelous error! —

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,

I dreamt — marvelous error! —

that a fiery sun was giving

light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt

warmth as from a hearth,

and sun because it gave light

and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I slept,

I dreamt — marvelous error! —

that it was God I had

here inside my heart.

[Translated by Robert Bly]

WHAT IS SLEEP? – Sri Ramana Maharshi

Question:         What is sleep?

Maharshi:        How can you know sleep when you are awake? The answer is to go to sleep and find out what it is.

Question:         But I cannot know it this way.

Maharshi:        This question must be raised in sleep.

Question:         But I cannot raise the question then.

Maharshi:        So that is sleep.

POEM – Mary Oliver

The spirit

            likes to dress up like this:

                        ten fingers,

                                    ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest

            at night

                        in the black branches,             

                                                in the morning

in the blue branches

            of the world.

                        It could float, of course,

                                    but would rather

plumb rough matter.

            Airy and shapeless thing,

                        it needs

                                    the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,

            the oceanic fluids;

                        it needs the body’s world

                                    instinct

and imagination

            and the dark hug of time,

                        sweetness

                                    and tangibility,

to be understood,

            to be more than pure light

                        that burns

                                    where no one is —

so it enters us —

            in the morning

                        shines from brute comfort

                                    like a stitch of lightning;                                 

and at night

            lights up the deep and wondrous

                        drownings of the body

                                    like a star.

GIFT – Czeslaw Milosz

A day so happy.

Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.

Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.

There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.

I knew no one worth my envying him.

Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.

To think that once I was the same man did not

embarrass me.

In my body I felt no pain.

When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS – Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

GREAT THINGS HAVE HAPPENED – Alden Nowlan

We were talking about the great things

that have happened in our lifetimes;

and I said, “Oh, I suppose the moon landing

was the greatest thing that has happened

in my time.” But, of course, we were all lying.

The truth is the moon landing didn’t mean

one-tenth as much to me as one night in 1963

when we lived in a three-room flat in what once had been

the mansion of some Victorian merchant prince

(our kitchen had been a clothes closet, I’m sure),

on a street where by now nobody lived

who could afford to live anywhere else.

That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,

woke up at half-past four in the morning

and ate cinnamon toast together.

“Is that all?” I hear somebody ask.

Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness

and, under our windows, the street-cleaners

were working their machines and conversing in Italian,

and everything was strange without being threatening,

even the tea-kettle whistled differently

than in the daytime: it was like the feeling

you get sometimes in a country you’ve never visited

before, when the bread doesn’t taste quite the same,

the butter is a small adventure, and they put

paprika on the table instead of pepper,

except that there was nobody in this country

except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder

of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love.

WHEN I MET MY MUSE – William Stafford

 I glanced at her and took my glasses

Off—they were still singing. They buzzed

 like a locust on the coffee table and then

 ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the

 sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and

 knew that nails up there took a new grip

 on whatever they touched. “I am your own

 way of looking at things,” she said. “When

 you allow me to live with you, every

 glance at the world around you will be

 a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

ALIVE TOGETHER – Lisel Mueller

Speaking of marvels, I am alive

together with you, when I might have been

alive with anyone under the sun,

when I might have been Abelard’s woman

or the whore of a Renaissance pope

or a peasant wife with not enough food

and not enough love, with my children

dead of the plague. I might have slept

in an alcove next to the man

with the golden nose, who poked it

into the business of stars,

or sewn a starry flag

for a general with wooden teeth,

I might have been an exemplary Pocahontas

or a woman without a name

weeping in Master’s bed

for my husband, exchanged for a mule,

my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.

I might have been stretched on a totem pole

to appease a vindictive god

or left, a useless girl-child,

to die on a cliff. I like to think

I might have been Mary Shelley

in love with a wrongheaded angel,

or Mary’s friend. I might have been you.

This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,

our chances of being alive together

statistically nonexistent;

still we have made it, alive in a time

when rationalists in square hats

and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses

agree it is almost over,

alive with our lively children

who —  but for endless ifs —

might have missed out on being alive

together with marvels and follies

and longings and lies and wishes

and error and humor and mercy

and journeys and voices and faces

and colors and summers and mornings

and knowledge and tears and chance.

THE CATHOLIC BELLS – William Carlos Williams

Tho’ I’m no Catholic

I listen hard when the bells

in the yellow-brick tower

of their new church

ring down the leaves

ring in the frost upon them

and the death of the flowers

ring out the grackle

toward the south, the sky

darkened by them, ring in

the new baby of Mr. and Mrs.

Krantz which cannot

for the fat of its cheeks

open well its eyes, ring out

the parrot under its hood

jealous of the child

ring in Sunday morning

and old age which adds as it

takes away. Let them ring

only ring! over the oil

painting of a young priest

on the church wall advertising

last week’s Novena to St.

Anthony, ring for the lame

young man in black with

gaunt cheeks and wearing a

Derby hat, who is hurrying

to 11 o’clock Mass (the

grapes still hanging to

the vines along the nearby

Concordia Halle like broken

teeth in the head of an

old man) Let them ring

for the eyes and ring for

the hands and ring for

the children of my friend

who no longer hears

them ring but with a smile

and in a low voice speaks

of the decisions of her

daughter and the proposals

and betrayals of her

husband’s friends. O bells

ring for the ringing!

the beginnng and the end

of the ringing! Ring ring

ring ring ring ring ring!

Catholic bells!

SEAL LULLABY – Rudyard Kipling

Oh, hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,

And black are the waters that sparkled so green,

The moon o’er the combers, looks downward to find us

At rest in the hollows that rustle between.

Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;

Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!

The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,

Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

IT’S ALL I HAVE TO BRING TO–DAY – Emily Dickinson

It’s all I have to bring to-day,

This, and my heart beside,

This, and my heart, and all the fields,

And all the meadows wide.

Be sure you count, should I forget, --

Someone the sum could tell, --

This, and my heart, and all the bees

Which in the clover dwell.

A MAN IN HIS LIFE – Yehuda Amichai

A man doesn’t have time in his life

to have time for everything.

He doesn’t have seasons enough to have

a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes

Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,

to laugh and cry with the same eyes,

with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,

to make love in war and war in love.

And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,

to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest

what history

takes years and years to do.

A man doesn’t have time.

When he loses he seeks, when he finds

he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves

he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul

is very professional.

Only his body remains forever

an amateur. It tries and it misses,

gets muddled, doesn’t learn a thing,

drunk and blind in its pleasures

and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,

Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,

the leaves growing dry on the ground,

the bare branches pointing to the place

where there’s time for everything.

AUTUMN DAY – Rainer Maria Rilke

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.

Lay your shadow on the sundials

and let loose the wind in the fields.

 Bid the last fruits to be full;

give them another two more southerly days,

press them to ripeness, and chase

the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one

anymore.

Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long

time,

will stay up, read, write long letters,

and wander the avenues, up and down,

restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

[Translated by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann]

BUGS IN A BOWL – David Budbill

Han Shan, that great and crazy, wonder-filled Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, said:

We’re just like bugs in a bowl. All day going around never leaving their bowl.

I say, That’s right! Every day climbing up 
the steep sides, sliding back.

Over and over again. Around and around.
Up and back down.

Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands,
cry, moan, feel sorry for yourself.

Or. Look around. See your fellow bugs.
Walk around.

Say, Hey, how you doin’?
 Say, Nice Bowl!

ODE TO MY SOCKS – Pablo Neruda

Maru Mori brought me

a pair

of socks

which she knitted with her own

sheepherder hands,

two socks as soft

as rabbits.

I slipped my feet

into them

as if they were

two

cases

knitted

with threads of

twilight

and the pelt of sheep.

Outrageous socks,

my feet became

two fish

made of wool,

two long sharks

of ultramarine blue

crossed

by one golden hair,

two gigantic blackbirds,

two cannons:

my feet

were honored

in this way

by

these

heavenly

socks.

They were

so beautiful

that for the first time

my feet seemed to me

unacceptable

like two decrepit

firemen, firemen

unworthy

of that embroidered

fire,

of those luminous

socks.

Nevertheless,

I resisted

the sharp temptation

to save them

as schoolboys

keep

fireflies,

as scholars

collect

sacred documents,

I resisted

the wild impulse

to put them

in a golden

cage

and each day give them

birdseed

and chunks of pink melon.

Like explorers

in the jungle

who hand over the rare

green deer

 to the roasting spit

and eat it

with remorse,

I stretched out

my feet

and pulled on

the

magnificent

socks

and

then my shoes.

And the moral of my ode

Is this:

beauty is twice

beauty

and what is good is doubly

good

when it’s a matter of two

woolen socks

in winter.

[Translated by Stephen Mitchell]

From WHEN WILLIAM STAFFORD DIED – Robert Bly

If all a man does is to watch from the shore,

Then he doesn't have to worry about the current.

But if affection has put us into the stream,

Then we have to agree to where the water goes.

CHERRIES – Barbara La Morticella

 Fireweed loves the yard

 and the fire that conjured it

 into the light.

 And the scarlet elderberry

 loves the old junkpile

         it leans against.

 The morning glory smothers everything

 in an embrace: the fence,

 the wood workbench,

 the rusted steel.

 Here’s a summer day that’s so slow

 even the light

         moves like honey;

 Daisies jump fences

         and then just mill around.

 Here’s a cherry tree that’s so rich

 when it offers its heart to the birds,

 every cherry

         is a year of cherries.

ANIMA MAGICA ABSCONDITA – Thomas Vaughan

Sometimes thou may’st walk in groves,

which being full of majestie

will much advance the soul.

FAMOUS – Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to the silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it,

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men,

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it did.

PERFECT JOY – Chuang Tzu

Here is how I sum it up:

Heaven does nothing: its non-doing is its serenity.

Earth does nothing: it’s non-doing is its rest.

From the union of these two non-doings

All actions proceed,

All things are made.

How vast, how invisible

This coming-to-be!

All things come from nowhere!

How vast, how invisible

Now way to explain it!

All beings in their perfection

Are born of non-doing.

Hence it is said:

“Heaven and earth do nothing

Yet there is nothing they do not do.”

Where is the man who can attain

To this non-doing?

[Translated by Thomas Merton]

THE EMPTY AND THE FILLED – Paul Valery

I set down the book; I look at my familiar things, I stroke my chin; I leaf through these notes. And all this passes without impediment, as if freely, as if these were separated and independent events, isolated in the void, and without interaction of the one upon the other. And the book lying there and the hand resting here have no interconnection; no more than the gleaming doorknob has with anything else around it.

But then I can suddenly see quite otherwise, and see with full volition, that all these things are cogs of a single engine, jigsaw pieces; and that each displacement is inescapably a substitution, as in a liquid in which one molecule cannot be moved without another taking its place. Now nothing is casual, nothing is alone. The independence of objects is now only an appearance. Their apartness, their noncontact, are appearances.

THE SNOW MAN – Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

UNITY – Daglarca

The horse’s mind

Blends

So swiftly

Into the hay’s mind

From THE SONG OF ENLIGHTENMENT

The moon shines on the river,

The wind blows through the pines —

Whose providence is this long beautiful evening?

OCEANS – Juan Ramon Jimenez

I have a feeling that my boat

has struck, down there in the depths,

against a great thing.

And nothing

happens!

Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves . . .

— Nothing happens?

 Or has everything happened,

and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?

LISTEN – W.S. Merwin

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water looking out

in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

in a culture up to its chin in shame

living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

 in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the back door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you

with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable

unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

and our lost feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster thank the minutes

or our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us like the earth

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is

THE RAIN – Robert Creeley

All night the sound had

come back again,

and again falls

this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself

that must be remembered,

insisted upon

so often? Is it

the never the ease,

even the hardness,

of rain falling

will have for me

something other than this,

something not so insistent -

am I to be locked in this

final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,

lie next to me.

Be, for me, like rain,

the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-

lust of intentional indifference.

Be wet

with a decent happiness.

A BLESSING – James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

AMPLE MAKE THIS BED – Emily Dickinson

Ample make this bed.

Make this bed with awe;

In it wait till judgment break

Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,

Be its pillow round;

Let no sunrise’ yellow noise

Interrupt this ground.

THE IMPEDED STREAM – Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

            we have come to our real work.

And that when we no longer know

            which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled

            is not employed.

The impeded stream

            is the one that sings.

SELECTED PROSE – John Muir

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

Surely all God’s people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes – all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them.

Everything is flowing – going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks ... While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood ... in
Nature’s warm heart.

Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make – leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone - we all dwell in a house of one room - the world with the firmament for its roof ­– and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang –“home-going.” So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit-waited on, watched over, noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own Heaven-dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast-all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share Heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity. “Our lives are rounded with a sleep.”

COLD MOUNTAIN POEMS – Han Shan

On top of Cold Mountain the lone round moon

Lights the whole clear cloudless sky.

Honor this priceless natural treasure

Concealed in five shadows, sunk deep in the flesh.

[Translated by Gary Snyder]

Cold Mountain is a house

Without beams or walls.

The six doors left and right are open

The hall is sky blue.

The rooms all vacant and vague

The east wall beats on the west wall

At the center nothing.

Borrowers don’t bother me

In the cold I build a little fire

When I’m hungry I boil up some greens.

I’ve got no use for the kulak

With his big barn and pasture -

He just sets up a prison for himself.

Once in he can’t get out.

Think it over –

You know it might happen to you.

[Translated by Gary Snyder]

There’s a naked bug at Cold Mountain

With a white body and a black head.

His hand holds two book scrolls,

One the Way and one its Power.

His shack's got no pots or oven,

He goes for a long walk with his shirt and pants askew.

But he always carries the sword of wisdom:

He means to cut down senseless craving.

[Translated by Gary Snyder]

HYMNUS AD PATREM SINENSIS
 – Philip Whalen 
 

I praise those ancient Chinamen 


Who left me a few words, 


Usually a pointless joke or silly question

A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick splashed picture ~ bug, leaf, caricature of

Teacher 
on paper held together now by little more than ink 
& their own strength brushed momentarily over it 


Their world and several since 


Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it ~


Cheered as it whizzed by ~
& conked out among the busted spring rain cherryblossom winejars 


Happy to have saved us all.

PHILIP WHALEN

From a hospital bed in San Francisco towards the end of his life, he commented on the stages of loss:

"They want me to die in stages.

I can’t be bothered with that."

I SAW MYSELF – Lew Welch

I saw myself


a ring of bone


in the clear stream


of all of it



and vowed


always to be open to it


that all of it


might flow through



and then heard


“ring of bone” where


ring is what a



bell does

From WOBBLY ROCK – Lew Welch

For Gary Snyder

“I think I’ll be the Buddha of this place”

and sat himself

    down

        1.

It’s a real rock

        (believe this first)

Resting on actual sand at the surf’s edge:

Muir Beach, California

        (like everything else I have

        somebody showed it to me and I found it by myself)

Hard common stone

Size of the largest haystack

It moves when hit by waves

Actually shudders

        (even a good gust of wind will do it

        if you sit real still and keep your mouth shut)

Notched to certain center it

Yields and then comes back to it:

Wobbly tons

A WOMAN’S SEX – Ikkyu

It has the original mouth but remains wordless;


It is surrounded by a magnificent mound of hair.


Sentient beings can get completely lost in it


But it is also the birthplace of all the

Buddhas of the ten thousand worlds.

[Translated by John Stevens]

CROWFOOT

What is life?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow which runs across

the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

23RD PSALM

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 


He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. 


He restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 


Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

1 CORINTHIANS 13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have faith so as to move mountains but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrong doing but rejoices in the truth.

 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. When I became an adult, I put away childish ways.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

THE RED WHEELBARROW – William Carlos Williams

So much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

BLISS AND SORROW – Ikkyu

Bliss and sorrow

love and hate

hot and cold

happiness and anger

self and other

enjoying poetry and beauty

may lead to hell

but look what we find along the way

PLUM BLOSSOMS!  PEACH FLOWERS!

[Translated by Brian Fuke Howlett Sensei]

From Song of Myself – Walt Whitman

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the
origin of all poems,


You shall possess the good of the earth and sun (there are
 millions of suns left)


You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor
look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the
spectres in books,


You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things
 from me,


You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

From SONG OF MYSELF – Walt Whitman

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains
    

of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,


I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

Shakyamuni Buddha’s LAST WORDS

Be a lamp unto yourself;

be your own confidence.

Hold to the truth within yourself 
as if it were the only lamp.