The Broken Bowl

His hands still marked

By scar and callus,

His kingdom now

A shattered palace,

We drink his cup,

No fear, no malice,

This broken bowl,

His sacred chalice.

Just whose hands are scared and callused? What kingdom is it that now is shattered? Whose cup is it at our lips? Why must we drink? Why no fear or malice? What is broken about the bowl? What makes this chalice sacred? Where does "sacred" live?

I wrote this poem yesterday, at noon, at work, in the middle of a very busy holiday retail workday. I'm not sure why the words came to me, but the poem formed itself pretty completely in just a few minutes and I had to stop and write it down on the back of some scratch paper. Several hours later I read it to a friend who dropped by the shop. After I did, her eyes widened and she told me she had just come from witnessing the death of a close friend of her husband.

He had died just a couple of hours earlier, in fact at noon. He died bitter with regrets over his perceived failure to express his love to friends, his failure to get together with friends from the past, the failure to appreciate the good times he had had with others and most of all his failure to help others whom he knew were in need when he could have.

I had been thinking of my poem in terms of this world that we live in as a shattered palace, once lovely now degraded by war, overpopulation, pollution and such, degraded by our own disappointments and false views. I had been thinking of ourselves as the suffering Christ and our own scared hands. The cup as the life that we live, drinking perpetually this less than perfect, wounded moment. This moment, this life itself, as the sacred chalice. If life is not sacred, then what could be? If "sacred" lives at all, surely it is living no other place than in our own hearts and minds. It is our knowing and living itself that gives life to the sacred. How could anything be sacred if tainted with fear or rancor?

But my friend's story forced home a more specific view. Here is one small life, one man, his life now ended. His body a shattered palace, certainly, but his dreams and cares, his feelings of love and friendship lie shattered too, now at an end and shattered by his own inaction. Up to the end, the bitter cup he was forced to drink was of his own making.

Lets us take heart and courage from the knowledge that we are the sacred chalice, we carry the light of life within us all. Lets us all, my friends and loved ones, take warning from the sorrow of another. Let us keep this cup we drink sweet with love, let us share the love we feel with others and when we depart, let us do so with a glad heart.

Use care as you prepare

The cup before you,

Sweet wine or gaul,

Remember,

It is you who

Will drink it.

The lovely broken chalice above is the work of craftsman Ron Chamberlain. It and more can be seen on his website: http://www.rdchamberlin.com/Home.html

Lines on Viewing the Full Lunar Eclipse

Dawn's early light,

The full moon itself,

Drawing veil,

Eclipsing.

Face full masked,

She drops,

Glowing crimson,

Behind distant trees,

Now gone,

And morning fresh delivered.

- 12/10/11

Image from: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/lunar-eclipse-photos/

Dreaming of an Old Friend

In the silent early hours,

When moonlight reveals

Those things that daylight misses,

The shades of memory

Are quite free to come and go.

Thus a visit from an old friend,

Dead now twenty years and more,

With a smile as warm as ever,

But a hand as ungraspable

As mind itself.

In June of 2008 I had a life-saving operation, a liver transplant. After regaining consciousness, I lay immobilized in intensive care for a few days and nights. One night, the nurse who usually hovered nearby, was called away to help deal with another patient in the next room who was dying. All of the staff became so focused on this man that I was left alone for a rather long time.

Lying there alone, I felt suddenly felt a great need to have someone there with me. I was dependent on an oxygen line and uncertain that I could keep breathing if I lost consciousness. Focused powerfully on my breathing, and powerless to move an inch, I turned to my own mind for help. I began to visualize an old friend of mine who had passed away a few years before.

Gene had suffered greatly in his life, surviving both tuberculosis in his youth and lung cancer as an adult. In the years we were friends, he walked with painful deliberation and struggled constantly for air. But he had such a powerful spirit, he never let his difficulties get in the way of his passion for the things he loved, art, music, history, literature and an appreciation for the beauty of women. Gene taught all that knew him by example how to face pain and adversity with courage, good humor and a relentless zest for life.

He was just the sort of friend I needed at that moment and so I conjured him up. I felt his presence and I could almost see him standing by my bedside. Gene was a fierce atheist, a product of an Irish upbringing that forever soured him on anything that smacked of God or an afterlife. I apologized to him for dragging him back from non-existence, for giving him a life of sorts again, if only for a short while, to help me in my moment of need. He seemed to understand and we had a great conversation about memory, existence and where it is that life actually lives. We agreed that it lives in the mind, where the past, the present and the future all have their existence, and where we were in fact having our conversation. It is also where we are at this moment, writing and reading this blog.

When the crisis in the other cubicle reached its' natural conclusion my nurse returned. I bid Gene farewell and allowed him to return to his beloved non-existence, thanking him for allowing me to use him in the way I had.

Now that three years have passed, I am once more undergoing another medical ordeal, this time it's interferon treatment to clear my system of the virus that has caused all the problems in the first place. It will go on for a year and it can be very demanding physically. I admit to feeling some anxiety about doing it, as it is not without serious risks. But a few nights ago, in the early hours when moonlight reveals those things that daylight misses, I had a dream visitor, my old friend Gene. He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. Although I could not grasp his hand, his smile told me all I need to know.

Thanks, Gene.

"The past is ungraspable, the present is ungraspable,

the future is ungraspable."

~ The Diamond Sutra

Our photo today is of the eery beauty of a night-blooming cactus, photographed hours before the dawn.

Why Sigh?

With their leaves as fine as feathers,

The graceful trees must sway and sigh

With every passing breeze,

But why, like they, must we?

These trees have been swaying since the dawn of time, for as long as there have been eyes to see them and a heart to feel the breeze of loss. "While loved, flowers fall" says old Dogen and he wasn't wrong. "All the world is falling" sings Antony in "The Rapture", and I think he has the right of it. But "Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning." Trees sigh, flowers fall and castles burn, it's the heart that doesn't fail. It is because we love these ones that fall that we feel the breeze at all.

So be brave. Live and love. And when it's blowing, feel the breeze and know that you are alive.

The feathery leaves seen above are the shadows of a pepper tree the afternoon sun casts on my bedroom window.

Without Effort

Unattended and without effort,

The Earth spins on,

Endlessly describing its arc

Around a star that never blinks.

Rain, without urging,

Always finds its way

Back to the sea.

The Earth, star, rain, rivers and the sea perform their endless action without intent and without effort. Our bodies function in a similar fashion, cells beyond number live and thrive without premeditation of any sort. Acting in concert, their wet net gives rise to the forms we call ourselves. The natural function of these collective cells gives rise to cognition, but its very easy to get lost in our thoughts. In meditation, we may still the busy mind and restore our perspective. With balanced mind, we are free to enjoy our effortless world once more.

Enjoy!

Today's handsome image comes from a copyright-free archive at:

http://www.123rf.com/photo_6956303_earth-and-sun-space-sunrise.html

The Real Way of All Flesh

All flesh that’s fallen,

It is found,

Lies ever changing

In the ground,

Sustaining empires of

Small hungry creatures.

Beetles, ants and fungi

And bacteria all thrive

On the remains of those who

Were once themselves alive.

Scattered ashes in

Garden soil or sea

Nourish numberless now,

As well as those who

Are still yet to be.

Life circles all,

Both Feed and Fed,

And not even

Those who die

Are dead.

What's all this fuss about life and death? None of us getting out of the chain of life anytime soon, so don't bother running, you can't get away! Just relax and enjoy being fed while you can, your turn to play food will come soon enough. Those salmon were having a pretty great time up until the moment they got caught. And now? Delicious!

Life has been thriving on this mud ball for a long time and will go on thriving for a long time to come. So what if the Empire of the Meat Eating Monkeys slowly passes away or is gone in a flash? Those of us writing and reading this are the part of the process that got to sit up and admire the scenery. Enjoy the view, my friends, that's why you're here. It's a truly rare privilege to be here now, so pay close attention!

The cool customers pictured above made their brief appearance at Seattle's Pikes Place Market earlier this year. How about you?

A Fundamental Truth

What's so fun

About being demented?

Eager office seekers

Claim to be,

Washed in the Blood

Of the Lamb.

But who would trust

Their precious flocks

To the care of

Such hungry wolves?

There are some days that I just shouldn't open the newspaper. I originally included a second, very angry verse here, but after a few moment's calm reflection I decided to redact it from this page. Angry words, like angry deeds, have a way of bouncing around and coming back to one. We could all do well to keep that in mind. I'll keep trying.

Disturbing image is from PhotoshopTalent.com

Zen's Chinese Heritage

"A monk asked, "Why did the First Ancestor come from the west?"

Sansheng said, "Spoiled meat draws flies."

Wait, did he just compare Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, to a rot seeking fly?

Yep!

These irreverent words were the response of Sansheng Huiran, prominent disciple of Linji Yixuan. Sansheng was a well-traveled Zenist, having sharpened his abilities with the likes of Yangshan, Xiangyan, Deshan, Daowu and many other well-known teachers of the Tang Dynasty Chan, or Zen, milieu. The words of all of these illustrious characters and many, many more may be found in the pages of the new revised edition of Andy Ferguson's monumental "Zen's Chinese Heritage".

Americans with only a casual familiarity with it may be forgiven for thinking that Zen is a Japanese creation. The art and architecture, calligraphy, tea ceremonies and the tranquil gardens of the famous Japanese monasteries are all familiar images to Westerners today. It's fair to say the the Japanese culture has deeply absorbed many of the values and perspectives of Zen into its' very core.

Zen was first transmitted to these shores by pioneering Japanese masters, its' foundational texts such as the classic koan collections "The Blue Cliff Record" and the "Gateless Barrier" came to us through Japanese texts, texts that used the traditional Japanese names for the seminal Chinese masters.

But Chinese they were and Ferguson has delved into the pages of the previously untranslated and unavailable Chinese Chan classic Wudeng Huiyuan (Compendium of Five Lamps) as well as several other similar sources to bring to life twenty-five "generations" of Chan masters from the years 480 to 1260 C.E.. Some of these stories are already familiar to serious students in slightly different form from the previously mentioned koan collections and Japanese "Lamp Transmissions", many more will be brand new to all western readers.

The last few days I have been staying home, recuperating from my latest liver biopsy, a yearly event in the transplant world. This, coupled with the long Labor Day holiday has given me a golden opportunity to dive into this marvelous book in an unhurried fashion, getting to know the ancestors of Zen. As the book is chronologically arranged, the reader can trace the development of the vocabulary and traditions of the various schools from master to student down the line.

I've been lying around for hours reading and making notes for myself in the margins. I've been reflecting and pondering and laughing an awful lot, these old Chan johnnies were a hilarious bunch by and large. Here, laughter and enlightenment go hand in hand. Indeed, the soul of humor is the sudden breaking of mental barriers and realization of surprising new perspectives, and what else is Zen after all?

Just as Andy Ferguson has gone straight to the source to bring us this text, you can go straight to the source to purchase a copy. Publisher, Wisdom Publications, has a great on-line deal on the book, 20% off cover price. Click right here for a link to them if you want. (By the way, this is not any sort of paid ad, I just really like this book and I would like to share my pleasure with you, my gentle readers.)

Let me leave with two stories that particularly tickled my fancy.

This one's for my old friend James Ford over at Monkey Mind.

Baoshou asked a monk, "Where did you come from?"

The monk said, "From West Mountain."

Baoshou asked, "Did you see the monkey?"

The monk said, "I saw it."

Baoshou said, "How clever was it?"

The monk said, "I saw that I was not the least bit clever."

Baoshou hit him.

This other is a classic case of an hapless monk asking a damnfool question and having it turned back on himself. The reader can well imagine the sudden sweat and look of terror on the face of the poor fellow!

A monk asked, "What is the talk that is beyond the buddhas and ancestors?"

Qianfeng said, "I ask you."

The monk said, "Master, please don't ask me."

Qianfeng said, "If I ask you, it doesn't make any difference. So I ask you, what is the talk that is beyond the buddhas and ancestors?"

Black Crows at Dawn

Were I to engage in recriminations,

I would have only myself to berate,

Wasting all those years in

Coming and going,

All that time spent on this and that.

Dear readers, list while I sing,

Sit Zazen while you are still young!

Now grown old and quirky,

My seated body squawks and complains,

Like the cranky black crows

That gather at my window,

Daily with the dawn.

"Caw! Caw!"


Every Monday morning I arise at 5 AM to take a bone density medicine that requires I have an empty stomach and that I must remain upright for at least a half hour after taking. I find it to be a good opportunity to do a little pre-dawn meditation. Meditating with a mind that has not yet been engaged in performing tasks or conversations can be a very powerful practice.

But, if undisturbed by thought, my early morning mind seems to be more closely connected to my aging body's aches and pains, especially if the night has been a cool one. At such times I sometimes wish I had practiced seated meditation more regularly when I was young and in better shape, perhaps I wouldn't find the discomfort quite so distracting if I had. Perhaps such thoughts are just black crows themselves, reflexive complaints that come as predictably as the dawn.

After I've been sitting in my darkened room awhile, "rosy fingered dawn" begins to make her appearance through the curtains, and with her come her raucous heralds, a flock of crows that make their home in the trees surrounding our Lone Oak manse. Bela Lugosi's Dracula famously observes of his baying wolves "Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!" Let me tell you, Dracula's night children have nothing on our "children of the dawn"! Their song is hard to ignore.

I wish to thank Jiyu Jake Gage, Sensei, for the inclusion of the actual song of the crows as the last line here. I often present first draft poems aloud to him at the Vista Zen Center first thing in the morning. "Caw! Caw!" was his immediate response and a good one, I think. It adds a touch of the real and the immediate moment, bringing the lines up to the "now".


Today's image is from an unattributed fine art print I found through Google Images, "Black Crows Gathering"

The Nameless Ones

The tales are true,

I can show you the scars,

The twisted cables

And the broken spars.

They don't care about shutters,

They're not stopped by bars,

The Nameless Ones

Filtered down from the stars.


Three poisons drive Man,

Hate, Delusion and Lust,

But the Nameless Ones

Simply feed when they must.

Some men are from Venus,

Some women from Mars,

But the Nameless Ones

Filtered down from the stars!


This weird little poem owes a great deal to the writings of the great American master, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the virtual father of the genre of cosmic horror. Central to Lovecraft's take on our place in Space and Time is the view that vast forces and intelligences are at play across the vastness of existence and that these "nameless ones" care not one whit for the concerns of the hapless hairless apes dwelling on this little planet.

In one of his finest stories, At The Mountains of Madness, he describes the discovery of the remains of an ancient space-faring race who settled on Earth millions of years ago. Along the way, we learn that all life on Earth is the accidental by-product of their bio-engineering projects. In classic Lovecraft fashion, the protagonists find themselves in a mind-blowing encounter with these elder beings and find all of their previous views and opinions of reality and their place in it blasted away forever in an instant of terrible realization!

I confess that I have been a dedicated fan of Lovecraft since shortly before I began shaving, 43 years or so ago. The dark grandeur of H.P.L.'s vision fascinates me. Over the years I've come to find in it a good deal of the scope and reach of Mahayana Buddhism, sort of a Dharma seen through a glass darkly. This may be just a crazy stretch on my part, but I think Lovecraft might have found the star-spanning wonder of the Avatamsaka Sutra highly interesting. But unlike the Flower-Garland Sutra, Lovecraft's dark dharma holds no hope of liberation, only a blind idiot god howling away at the center of all existence. Any jeweled net Lovecraft would have imagined would turn out to be some sort of horrible trap!

Although disturbing, we should not be alarmed by all this, Lovecraft's dark dharma was created to entertain. Written for his own amusement and for that of his large circle of like-minded friends, the highly rationalistic Lovecraft wrote his scary stories to tease the rational mind. He gives us a close brush with the vast unknown from the safe distance of our armchair.

My little exercise in "dark dharma" came about at the end of a very intense morning of sitting Zazen. It began with the appearance in my mind of a phrase of H.P.L.'s, "filtered down from the stars". The Nameless Ones and the Three Poisons came rushing in close behind and the poem was finished before lunchtime. Phew!

If you have the slightest interest in Lovecraft and his writings, you must check out the outstanding H.P.Lovecraft Literary Podcast!! Hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer have been doing an absolutely fantastic job, working their way through the Master's works in chronological order, discussing each story in depth and having a heck of a lot of fun along the way. I listen to each new episode in my car going to work and they totally make my entire day!

Today's image is a NASA image from the Hubble telescope of the Swan Nebula, a small section of M17, a "hotbed of star formation". Check it out on the blog where I found it, Ecodigerati.

Attachment, Impermanence & Suffering

That day that you told me

That you loved me,

I didn't realize

That you

Were

Talking to

My hair.

I've asked Hakuin's Daruma to be our poster boy for impermanence today. Tradition does not tell us what his hair looked like when he had it, other than to tell us that his beard was red. What ever it looked like, I'm guessing it looked pretty good when he was young and that he probably didn't spend a lot of time brooding about its' loss when he shaved it off. Would that all of us could face the changes wrought by the passage of time so well.

This poem really isn't about hair loss, it is about the pain caused by attachment, lost love, false perceptions, foolish attractions, impermanence and most importantly, realization. This poor person has just had a moment of clarity, lucky devil!

That's a lot of heavy lifting for such a little poem!

I'll leave you with a quote from the ever quotable Dogen Zenji, from Thomas Cleary's translation of Genjokoan.

"Because the Buddha Way originally sprang forth from abundance and paucity, there is birth and death, delusion and enlightenment, sentient beings and Buddhas. Moreover, though this is so, flowers fall when we cling to them, and weeds only grow when we dislike them."

Today's image is a photo taken at the Hakuin exhibition at the LACMA, currently on display. If you live in California, you should make it a point to go see this, the largest such display ever assembled. For information, go to:

http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/sound-one-hand-paintings-and-calligraphy-zen-master-hakuin

The Dogen quote is taken from The Zensite's Dogen section, a wonderful font of all things Dogen, see:

http://www.thezensite.com/MainPages/Dogen_teachings.html

Emulate the Wise

When bombs are falling,

Even the very brave

Would do well

To emulate the wise,

And leap

Into a hole,

Of any size.

There seem to be a lot of falling bombs and things exploding these days. Not just the metaphorical bombshells we all experience in the day to day, but actual bombs, exploding in places all around this troubled globe. Many are falling on young people facing up to the dictators who have held their countries in the grip of fear since before they were born. I marvel at their courage and I wish them well.

When I was a young soldier myself, lo these many years ago, I had occasion to come under fire a few times and was even knocked on my ass twice by very powerful explosions . I learned a valuable lesson from this, which I have given voice to above. Forget the heroics, get your head down when necessary and with any luck at all, you may live to write your own poem about it.

Our image this time is from the Korean War. It can be seen in numerous books or on the web at: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/47914,in-pictures,news-in-pictures,in-pictures-the-korean-war,3?print=print

Where Can It Be Seen?

Though we sit at the shore

Of the world-spaning sea,

We marvel at the Moon

Reflected in a drop of dew.

When a single drop

Returns to the sea,

Where can it be seen?

In his "Genjo-koan" Dogen Zenji says;

"Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water."

"Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky."

and

"Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water."

Master Dogen certainly has a way of getting to the heart of the matter. Sometimes I feel as though my thoughts are like my moon-reflecting drop, when I read Dogen, it is like catching a glimpse of that world-spaning sea. Sometimes we may think of our understanding as some kind of great realization, but any realization that we may have is limited to what our "eye of practice can reach". If we were ever to reach the understanding of that vast sea in its' entirety, in what way would that realization actually be called "ours"?

The Dogen quotes are from the Translation by Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi found at:

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan_Aitken.htm

The image above is a reworked version of an image found at:

Africanalchemy.wordpress.com

Almost No Words

Lately this poet

Finds himself

At a loss for words.

Looking at this tree,

I see,

And I am lost.

You see?

I photographed this amazing bonsai cedar on opening day of the new home of the San Diego Bonsai Society at the Wild Animal safari (formerly The Wild Animal Park) in San Pasqual, San Diego County.

Grass

Grasses beyond number

Together growing,

All sway in the same breeze.

Although each stalk of grass stands as an individual, all grasses are subject to the same basic conditions. Although each is separate, each is surrounded by a multitude of kindred, all related to each other. The winds that blow, blow upon all. The rains that fall, fall upon all. The rays of the sun warm all alike.

Perhaps we like to think of ourselves as individuals, standing alone in our field. But it is also true that we all stand together in one great field, surrounded by our kindred beings. We are all related to each other by our common humanity. When the wind blows or the earth moves, we may for a brief while see our interconnectedness more clearly.

Palm Sunday

I hold the world

In the palm of my hand,

And certainly,

You hold it too,

And just as surely,

It is true,

It holds

All of us,

And you.

Here's a re-working of last week's poem. We're still holding on, but don't hold too tight! In fact, if you let go, and let go all the way, you'll find out just how true it is that the whole world is holding you, and all of us. Not only does it hold our bodies, it also holds our attention as well. Just try for a moment to look away and you'll see what I mean!

The dazzling yellow flowers blossom on a tree that grows in front of a plant nursery just up the street from our house. Although I don't know it's name, it is a desert plant common to our region and blooms in the winter months. And yes, my friends the bees absolutely adore this small tree's flowering display. Their busy humming fills the air in mid-day should you be so fortunate as to pass by. This photo was taken in early January.

Cactus Flower, Open Palm

With hand steady

And breath calm,

I hold the world

In my open palm.

It has been quite a while since I last posted. It's not that nothing has been happening, but that my poetic voice has been quiet of late. Some who read this may say "A good thing, too!" But, ah well! The above four lines I found neatly written in a little notebook at my desk that I seldom use. Although written sometime in the last few months, I can't clearly recall actually writing it or the events surrounding its' origin. So, let it stand as a somewhat mysterious message from the recent past.

Clearly, I was feeling very good in that moment. This is the open palm of the hand that holds the world, in the world that holds the hand that opens its palm. The hand is steady and the breath is calm, this is no manic moment, but a serene realization of the complete connection that underlies all existence. I hold it in my palm just as you hold it too, and it holds you and all of us. It supports all things and gives them life, demanding nothing, in the perfect freedom of that open palm.

The photo was taken two steps from my office door, where the most beautiful cacti grow in terra cotta pots. When they bloom, they fill the air with the most ethereal scent, sweet honey and a high, piercing mineral tang that knocks me out whenever I smell it. The bees are crazy about it too, and swarm about in the morning air. One sniff of this is should be enough to convince any of us that being present in this moment is the place to be.

The Unborn

Mysterious realm,

No other...

Unborn.

Without walls,

Where can the Mind

Not go?

This little poem was written several weeks ago, during a period when I was reading several books on the seventeenth century Japanese maverick/reformer Zen priest Bankei. Bankei was an interesting character, he came onto the Zen scene at a time when traditional Zen seemed to have lost it's way in empty ritual and form. Bankei attempted to cut through this with his preaching about "the Unborn", the unborn, deathless, eternal Buddha-mind that is the basis of all consciousness, in fact , the basis of all everything!

"When your awake, you're awake in the same Buddha-mind you were sleeping in. You sleep in the Buddha-mind while you sleep and are up and about in the Buddha-mind while you are up and about. That way, you always stay in the Buddha-mind. You're never apart from it for an instant."

He urged his followers (and he had many followers, his message spoke directly to a great many people in his day) to observe the Unborn at work in all things, especially in the sounds of birds, the rustling of leaves and the like. He said that the fact that we can instantly recognize these sounds for what the are without even trying in any way was the proof of the functioning of the Buddha-mind.

Even though he had put himself through the wringer of austerities and severe practices in his youthful quest for enlightenment, Bankei came to reject these extreme measures (like the Buddha himself), in favor of simply sitting Zazen and keeping the functioning of the Unborn in mind at all times.

There are two pretty good translations of Bankei's talks in print in English, Norman Waddell's "The Unborn: The life and Teaching of Zen Master Bankei" and "Bankei Zen" by Peter Haskel. There is also a chapter on him in the newly published "Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers" by Perle Besserman and Manfred B. Steger.

Eternal Now

Sit quite still

And you will see,

Freed from the bonds of

Was and will be,

Into the boundless realm

Of is.

If you watch attentively,

You'll see that what is,

Endlessly,

Changes every moment,

Yet remains.

That's the nature of this

Perpetual domain,

Morphing constantly into something

Quite the same.

Today's Image: Xiena sits and watches the unfolding moment with her tiny robot friend during our family's recent Christmas celebration.