Monkey Pureness

The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
- Hakuin (1685-1768)

True Buddha Dharma Way

Someone asked,
What do you mean by the true Buddha, the true Dharma and the true Way? Would you be good enough to explain to us?
The Master said,
The Buddha- this is the cleanness and purity of the mind.
The Dharma- this is the shining brightness of the mind.
The Way- this is the pure light that is never obstructed anywhere. The three are in fact one. All are empty names and have no true reality.
- Lin-chi (d.867)

MorOn-Star

Funny how all the features of our lives that are for our safety/security/protection and offered by some level of the government draw stiff resistance. However, market them as a convenience and suddenly people line up for it.

Imagine: We're putting a GPS chip in all your vehicles so that we have a record of everywhere you go with it. If there's a crash or carjacking, we can track it down.

Customers scream "Big Brother" and summarily reject it.

Reality: "MorON-Star. How can I help?"
"I locked my keys in the car! I can't get in!"
"What's your passcode?"
"I don't remember, but hurry up because the top's down and it's starting to rain!"

a thousand meters of melancholy

I shall go to the store of the tailor of lovers, tomorrow;
Wearing my long robe made from a thousand meters of melancholy.
He can cut you off from Yazid and sew you onto Zayd;
he can pair you with this one and separate you from the other.
He can attach you to one to whom you give your heart for life;
What a fabric, what a stitch, what a miracle-making hand.

(Divan 216:1-3)

Why by Philip Schultz (August 27, 2007)

Why

by Philip Schultz

August 27, 2007

is this man sitting here weeping

in this swanky restaurant

on his sixty-first birthday, because

his fear grows stronger each year,

because he's still the boy running

all out to first base, believing

getting there means everything,

because of the spiders climbing

the sycamore outside his house

this morning, the elegance of

a civilization free of delusion,

because of the boyish faces

of the five dead soldiers on TV,

the stoic curiosity in their eyes,

their belief in the righteousness

of sacrifice, because innocence

is the darkest place in the universe,

because of the Iraqis on their hands

and knees looking for a bloody button,

a bitten fingernail, evidence of

their stolen significance, because

of the primitive architecture

of his dreams, the brutal egoism

of his ignorance, because he believes

in deliverance, the purity of sorrow,

the sanctity of truth, because of

the original human faces of his wife

and two boys smiling at him across

this glittering table, because of

their passion for commemoration,

their certainty that goodness continues,

because of the spiders clinging to

the elegance of each moment, because

getting there still means everything?

Careful

Careful! Even moonlit dewdrops,
If you're lured to watch,
Are a wall before the truth.
- Sogyo (18th century)

How (Elizabeth Sutherland)

How

 

Out in the field, where the noone resides

Gaping like a fish, for one and the same

Squealing like a hyena, surrounded.

One and the different.

 

There's pain in this muscle.

Pain pain.

In a place been reached too oft.

Turn off?

It can't it won't.

It won't.

It can't.

 

There are bugs under my skin?

Only scars. Her mistake.

 

The deceit, the impenetrable wall;

Maybe not so much? 

This mile of anguish, out in the meadow

Where the lambs run free and brisk,

There is no free.

There is only brisk

And hast

And rush rush mad.

With no air, shark shark, fish.

 

The bugs never disappear – an age or two they stay,

But how long is an age?

How wide is a field?

How wet is a fish?

How gleeful is a hyena?

How minute is a bug?

How free is a lamb?

 

The Ship of Death - D. H. Lawrence

The Ship of Death

	I
	Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
	and the long journey towards oblivion.
	The apples falling like great drops of dew
	to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.
5	And it is time to go, to bid farewell
	to one's own self, and find an exit
	from the fallen self.
	II
	Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
	O build your ship of death, for you will need it.
10	The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
	thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.
	And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
	Ah! can't you smell it?
	And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
15	finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
	that blows upon it through the orifices.
	III
	And can a man his own quietus make
	with a bare bodkin?
	With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
20	a bruise or break of exit for his life;
	but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?
	Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
	ever a quietus make?
	IV
	O let us talk of quiet that we know,
25	that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
	of a strong heart at peace!
	How can we this, our own quietus, make?
	V
	Build then the ship of death, for you must take
	the longest journey, to oblivion.
30	And die the death, the long and painful death
	that lies between the old self and the new.
	Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
	already our souls are oozing through the exit
	of the cruel bruise.
35	Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
	is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
	already the flood is upon us.
	Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
	and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
40	for the dark flight down oblivion.
	VI
	Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
	has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.
	We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
	and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
45	and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.
	We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
	and our strength leaves us,
	and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
	cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.
	VII
50	We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
	is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
	of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.
	A little ship, with oars and food
	and little dishes, and all accoutrements
55	fitting and ready for the departing soul.
	Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
	and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
	in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
	with its store of food and little cooking pans
60	and change of clothes,
	upon the flood's black waste
	upon the waters of the end
	upon the sea of death, where still we sail
	darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.
65	There is no port, there is nowhere to go
	only the deepening black darkening still
	blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
	darkness at one with darkness, up and down
	and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
70	and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
	She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
	She is gone! gone! and yet
	somewhere she is there.
	Nowhere!
	VIII
75	And everything is gone, the body is gone
	completely under, gone, entirely gone.
	The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
	between them the little ship
	is gone
80	she is gone.
	It is the end, it is oblivion.
	IX
	And yet out of eternity a thread
	separates itself on the blackness,
	a horizontal thread
85	that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.
	Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
	A little higher?
	Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn,
	the cruel dawn of coming back to life
90	out of oblivion.
	Wait, wait, the little ship
	drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
	of a flood-dawn.
	Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
95	and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.
	A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.
	X
	The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
	emerges strange and lovely.
	And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
100	on the pink flood,
	and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
	filling the heart with peace.
	Swings the heart renewed with peace
	even of oblivion.
105	Oh build your ship of death, oh build it!
	for you will need it.
	For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

Wherever and whenever

Wherever and whenever
The mind is found
Attached to anything,
Make haste to detach
Yourself from it.
When you tarry for
Any length of time
It will turn again into
Your old home town.

-- Daito Kokushi (1282-1334)

I watch William Blake, who spotted angels

Blake

by Adam Zagajewski

August 13, 2007

I watch William Blake, who spotted angels

every day in treetops

and met God on the staircase

of his little house and found light in grimy alleys—

Blake, who died

singing gleefully

in a London thronged

with streetwalkers, admirals, and miracles,

William Blake, engraver, who labored

and lived in poverty but not despair,

who received burning signs

from the sea and from the starry sky,

who never lost hope, since hope

was always born anew like breath,

I see those who walked like him on graying streets,

headed toward the dawn's rosy orchid.

(Translated, from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh.)

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Not Worried About The Future

Scott Adams having some fun methinks! http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/not-worried-abo.html

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The Way of Heaven

The Way of heaven is silent,
It has no appearance, no pattern.
It is so vast that its
Limit cannot be reached;
It is so deep that it
Cannot be fathomed.
It is always evolving
Along with people,
But knowledge cannot grasp it.
It turns like a wheel,
Beginninglessly and endlessly,
Effective as a spirit.
Open and empty,
It goes along with the flow,
Always coming afterward
And never in the forefront

-- Lao- tzu