My Night with the Sages
I found their numbers
Six, sixty-three.
Dispensing wisdom
Demanding action
Citing authority.
Talking
And talking
And talking.
How could they possibly
Help with the night?
Lost in loud logic
Where is the comfort or distraction?
But I called anyway
And they came.
To uneasy free floating
In the bleak
They added gravity
And light
Not quite
In reach
But there.
To sleep.
Between the Waters
Let there be an expanse that it may separate water from water.
Genesis 1:6
It is a bottomless pit
The waters above
The waters below.
An abyss
A sea without boats.
No ground to stand.
Just falling.
If there is space between
How vast must it be
To contain hope?
Could it be so small
And still be heaven?
Garden
Carry the soil
Dig the holes
Plant the seeds
Water the garden
Or just watch
And wait.
Which are you,
If you know?
While I often write about Zen and Buddhism in this blog, I have never suggested a “where to begin” book. There are a lot of reasons for this, but that’s for another time.
(For those who might be interested, a leading Buddhist publication did a survey of where its readers did get started, and the overwhelming first book was Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, pretty clearly the most popular book on Zen in English. It is also where I got started.)
A Zen Harvest: Japanese Folk Zen Sayings (1988), compiled and translated by Soiku Shigematsu, is something different and special. (His first book, A Zen Forest: Sayings of the Masters (1981), is sadly out of print, but you can find a PDF if you go fishing in the Web sea.)
Shigematsu does a lovely job of explaining the text in his excellent Introduction. I actually suggest you not read the Introduction, at least not at first. Robert Aitken Roshi (author of another popular introduction to Zen) offers an appreciative Foreword. You can initially skip that too.
Instead, just browse anywhere in this collection of nearly 800 poem-like sayings. Anywhere. Don’t think of these as Zen. Don’t even think of these as poems. Don’t care about who said it or wrote it.
I am not even going to offer a sample saying, because it would not do the collection justice. Just get it and read in it, a few seconds at a time. You may or may not learn or find out anything about yourself, your life, other people’s lives, the world, the universe, or Zen. Does that really matter?
Metta Mama
As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed loving-kindness.
May all beings be happy.
May they live in safety and joy.
Metta Sutta
The miracles never end.
The conception, the birth, the growth.
Yet none of it happens
All of it flows
From you the source, the spring.
Ask:
How is it possible
Being merely human
Perfect and flawed
To give so much
For the other
To the other
Happiness, safety and joy?
Answer:
It is no other
Than yourself.
This child
No other than yourself.
Thanks to the wondrous mother I had and the wondrous mother of our child who graces our lives.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Bird Non Sense
Twee twee twee twee…twee
Twee twee twee twee…twee
Twee twee twee twee…twee twee
Twee twee twee twee twee
Twee twee twee twee
Patterns in patterns
If you listen long enough
Beyond the morning minutes
All day all spring
Forever
You’d find them.
Now just
Beautiful nonsense
Gracing the moment
Nothing more
All less.
Instructions
If I forget
Remember
To sit me down
Tell me to just sit
And breathe.
If I ask a question
Over and over
Frustrated
Frustrating
Don’t answer
Just sit me down
Remind me to breathe.
I won’t ask
What I should think about
Or what you’re thinking
You won’t ask
What I’m thinking.
It won’t matter
What I’m thinking
If I sit and
Remember to breathe.
If I forget
Whatever I forget
Right now
I remember
What I ask
And who I ask
To remember
To remind me
To sit
To breathe.
Mystic Maps
Before the journey
The maps were few,
Colorful, promising.
Destination uncertain
Roads to travel
Randomly real.
More maps
Until there was no room
To hold them
No time
To study them.
The map makers,
Had they seen these roads
Visited these towns
Or are these conjectures
Visions, fantasies
Conjured up?
Map makers or magicians
Directions or tricks,
Now I see where they took me
Where I stop and sit.
Time and joy
For the maps
And the trip.
Garbage Disposal of the Mind
Sinkhole for waste
From things
Expensive and cheap
Raw and cooked
No longer
Useful or needed.
Very noisy.
Unicorn Island
What difference does it make
Where the sun rises
What the time zone?
The earth and sun
Don’t care.
The bag man
Leisurely strolls
Past the French watch store.
The restaurants
Are ready from last night
White tablecloths
White napkins rolled.
Past an apartment courtyard
The smell of breakfast.
The time and place
The names and lives
No place
This morning
Is an island.
Note: The title requires an explanation. This is a scene in Westwood in Los Angeles. I love L.A.: sometime resident, recent visitor. Walking down Wilshire, I saw a billboard for a new YouTube movie called Unicorn Island. I decided that this was the perfect new name for the city. Filled with unicorns, a bit of an island. It might not catch on, but for me, from now on, L.A. is always Unicorn Island.
Bob Schwartz 