blog
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There are some things that should be said and many more that should be left unsaid.
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More often than not a complement will do more harm than good, and advice will have the opposite effect.
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Things written on blogs are the same. They may be detrimental to a better self. Right Writing is also Right Speech.
if we think
only God forgives
then we are weaker
than we believe
forgiveness is
a matter of choice
not a given
just because
we are mortal
if we are willing
to forgive then
we have taken
the first step
to forgiveness
being willing
to some action
is something
we can do
that in itself is proof
we have the capacity
for forgiveness
some-thing
beautiful is
captured then
(re)arranged on
sensitive surface
becoming
an-other object
not a ‘you’ or ‘it’ but
an image and schema
without
time
place
essence
Death is not a question of if but when. Framed this way, then, there is nothing to fear about death, and one can get on with life and live it to the fullest.
Recitations
Drowned out
By summer heat,
Rushing crowd.
Drowned out by the jazz
My prayers reach no one.
A loose rendering of Santoka’s poem okyou todokanai jaazu no souon.
Speaking of frogs (which are a favourite topic in Zen) there is an article about a species of frog which listens without ears. But if listening without ears weren’t an actual fact this may well have been a koan which would go something like this:
Who is the man who
Speaks without tongue,
Listens without ears,
Sees without eyes?
Censure yourself, never another. Do not discuss right and wrong.
– Zengetsu (832-912)
My begging bowl
Accepts falling leaves
A rendering of Santoka’s poem teppatsu chirikuru ha o uketa.
Getsuan said to his students: “Keichu, the first wheel-maker of China, made two wheels of fifty spokes each. Now, suppose you removed the nave uniting the spokes. What would become of the wheel? And had Keichu done this, could he be called the master wheel-maker?”
Mumon’s comment: If anyone can answer this question instantly, his eyes will be like a comet and his mind like a flash of lightning.
When the hubless wheel turns,
Master or no master can stop it.
It turns above heaven and below earth,
South, north, east, and west.
Getsuan is Rep and Senzaki’s transliteration. Sekida and Yamada call him Gettan. The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen says Gatsurin or Getsurin. Whichever way you pronounce it it is as irrelevant as the axle being removed in this koan. Remove the axle and the cart is useless or rather the cart has lost its essence. That is the point of the koan though. What is left is Emptiness. But to see that Emptiness as Emptiness that is another thing. That is called Enlightenment, something which I do not have. And all I have shown here, much to my regret, is the ordinary of kind emptiness called intellect or concept.
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