Joker and thief.
Both a stance.
An edge of empowerment.
Poor little Zen.
No stance.
No edge.
They stand on the watchtower.
Zen sits in the commoner’s hand--
the hand wobbling--
Is Zen about weakness?
Stars swallowed by void
Fire streaks across the horizon
Moon illuminates
On mondays we write
On mondays we meme, make jokes,
while stupid men fight
On mondays we write
few or many inspired words
No matter if rhymed
This poem
Not that one….THIS one
Is gross mischaracterization
Of what’s actually happening
And yet….
And yet….
Gross mischaracterization,
Itself a happening,
Has its own
Uniquely ironic
Ephemeral
Charm
No one knows the next prime number.
It can’t be chosen.
But…
mockingbird chirps, then goes silent.
window between us.
in that gap,
this throat chirps once.
this body listens.
Albert Einstein once said some things
Very Poetic
Very Prophetic.
>We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.
>Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
>Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
>Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But there is no doubt in my mind that the lion belongs with it even if he cannot reveal himself to the eye all at once because of his huge dimension. We see him only the way a louse sitting upon him would.
>In living through this "great epoch," it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will! In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!
○●○
So what are we to do about ourselves? Our problem. Nothing? That is Madness.
No host forseen for a while
Suggestions:
Zen: staying away from conceptual thought
the three poisons: (Lobha) Greed/Attachment, (Dosa) Hatred/Aversion, (Moha) Delusion/Ignorance
https://zenmarrow.com/random
The various suggestions are themes, texts, ideas
"The theme is just a suggestion"
Hope you write something that I'd like "to put in a skin bag"
They take and take and take.
Concepts -- words -- thoughts.
Pockets emptied out, there's a blissful state that doesn't depend on anything.
Huangbo couldn't steal it from me.
It'll pass, replaced by this thought or another.
At my best, I watch for the gap in the middle. Mazu's suggestion.
Nevertheless, watching or not watching, blissed out or not,
the Unborn perceives, laughing no laughter,
it's blaring silence stretching out from heaven to earth.
Face to face,
self‑facing,
written out of existence.
At the keyboard,
I’m struck by why
some people “get it”
while others only mimic
the phrasing.
The difference
is which direction
one is facing.
In feeds of text and clips--
especially when money’s the reward--
why break new ground
when knock‑offs will still turn a dime?
These are different:
the writer is self‑facing.
And the reader should be too.
Otherwise: just words. Flat.
They point.
They don’t transmit.
The work isn’t here.
It’s in your facing.
coming home to my hovel,
the sound of crows and children playing
I sit zazen, back aching, then heat up food
it's friday night.
should i drink coffee? should i drink beer?
plane buzzing overhead, i scratch angrily at scabs
108 prostrations for 108 afflictions
whoever could take away my afflictions?
well worn clothing, no clothing at all,
friends don't take things from friends
walking alone in my head, in my body
nerves thrumming each note alone never ringing
never tingling, burning up and through
who rings? who rings? back aching,
10,000 afflictions in eyes unmet
staring ahead
faces dancing on the wall, singing a funeral pall
kwan seum bosal
almost.
just about.
critical mass --
where the context i've been building
starts pointing back at itself.
not because i arrived somewhere.
because the ground
was already
the whole walk.
---
we do know this unknowing
as the ground from which we move.
our actions sit on the frontier --
between clinging to a view
and acting from open, non-fixed awareness.
that frontier is not a place reached.
it is the way already walking,
if we are not pretending to have a map.