Zen Poems Thread

[Kaiku]

I thought I would start a thread for Zen/Buddhist poems. Or simply poems that touch you or your practice deeply. Or maybe a poem of your own. :)
This has always been one that has stuck with me for many many years:


Maple leaf
Falling down
Showing front
Showing back
-Ryokan, Japanese Zen poet


Gassho
Bobby

[Myosha]

It is present everywhere.
There is nothing it does not contain.
However only those who have
planted wisdom-seeds will be able
to continuously see it.”

- Dogen


Gassho,
Myosha

[Tiwala]

This is one of my favourites. I copied it down in my to do notebook where I log the day's jobs and some random thoughts. I forgot to copy down the author, but I think it's Ryokan Daigu

How many times since I came to this place
Have I seen the leaves green and then gold?
Wrapped by vines, the old trees have turned dark,
The bamboo have grown tall even in the valley's shade.
My staff has rotten from the night rain
My robe frayed from years of wind and frost.

In the vast silence of the universe,
For whom do I meditate
Each day and night?



Gassho, Ben

[Kokuu]

Lovely idea for a thread, Bobby.

I am currently reading The Selected Poems of Li Po. This is one of his:

Alone, searching for blue-lotus roofs,
I set out from city gates. Soon, frost

clear, Tung-lin temple bells call out,
Hu Creek's moon bright in pale water.

Heaven's fragrance everywhere pure
emptiness, heaven's music endless,

I sit silent. It's still, the entire Buddha-
realm in a hair's-breadth, mind-depths

all bottomless clarity, in which vast
kalpas begin and end out of nowhere.


I love that one of Ryokan's too, Ben.


Gassho
Kokuu/Andy

[Genshin]

The sound of maple leaves falling
in this mountain village
makes it hard to tell
a rainy day from one that is not.

- Ryokan

Gassho
Genshin (Matt)

[Nameless]

Really have to get a book of Ryokan's poems. Great thread idea Bobby. Here's a few I was putting together on the Three Marks of Existence:

Anicca:
Dawn breaks, horizon caressed
The sun sits high over head
Sinking low birds start to call
Silence settles and night falls

Anatta:
"I am just a tree."
To view thus just delusion -
I am the forest

Dukkha:
To not cling to the noon day sun
To not push from the coming night
As the trees fall, the forest departs
To view as such brings peace into life

Gassho, John

[Myozan Kodo]

Some lovely stuff.
Deep bows
Myozan

[Jishin]

I love this quote from the Waters and Mountains Sutra by Dogen:

"Understand the meaning of gives birth to a child. At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? Study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. This is to actualize giving birth in practice-realization. Study and investigate this thoroughly." :)

Gassho, Jishin

[zdlee]

Not strictly Zen (he was a Jodo Shinshu priest), but this is one of my favorite Issa poems.

A new year--
the same nonsense
piled on nonsense.

-Kobayashi Issa

Gassho,
Zac

[Kaiku]

Wonderful everyone. :)

Gassho
Bobby

[Myosha]

crossing long fields
frozen in its saddle
my shadow creeps by
- Basho

favorite bicycle-ride poem


Gassho,
Myosha

[Myosha]

Grains of white rice held by a black bowl
Soft matter of the brain cradled by the bowl of the skull
The open sky fills and flows
Over the bowl of branches held
Up by leafless trees.

Anzan Hoshin

[Myosha]

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

L. Cohen ('92)

[Myosha]

The moon reflected
In a mind clear
As still water:
Even the waves, breaking,
Are reflecting its light. - Dogen (on zazen)


Gassho,
Myosha

[Myosha]

in blossoming trees
suddenly he's hidden...
my son
- Issa

[Shugen]

But it is the dark emptiness contained
in every next moment that seems to me
the most singularly glorious gift,
that void which one is free to fill
with processions of men bearing burning
cedar knots or with parades of blue horses,
belled and ribboned and stepping sideways,
with tumbling white-faced mimes or companies
of black-robed choristers; to fill simply
with hammered silver teapots or kiln-dried
crockery, tangerine and almond custards,
polonaises, polkas, whittling sticks, wailing
walls; that space large enough to hold all
invented blasphemies and pieties, 10,000
definitions of god and more, never fully
filled, never.
- Pattiann Rogers
from The Greatest Grandeur
Firekeeper


Gassho,


Shugen

[Geika]

Gassho
Is a small,
Sitting Buddha.

[Myosha]

Do not stand at my grave and weep
Mary Elizabeth Frye



Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.


Gassho,
Myosha

[Taigu]

Written on Mount Koya as I was walking through the forest and its eery graveyard :

endless retreat
he cannot even complain

a stone Buddha

Gassho

T.

[Jishin]

Written on Mount Koya as I was walking through the forest and its eery graveyard :

endless retreat
he cannot even complain

a stone Buddha

Gassho

T.

Beautiful. 😄

[arnold]

Two poems from many years ago:

Endless is my vow
under the azure sky
boundless autumn

-Soen Nakagawa Roshi

reading that for the first time I replied:

This beginningless vow
falls with the universe
late winter snowstorm

Gassho,
Arnold

[senryu]

A poem by W. H. Auden quoted in a Book of Joko Beck Sensei:

We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

Gassho
Senryu

[arnold]

"He cannot even complain", really great Rev. Taigu.

[Myosha]

Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)

T.S. Eliot

[Kaiku]

I came across a collection of Japanese death poems or jisei.

In the death poem or jisei, the essential idea was that at one's final moment of life, one's reflection on death (one's own usually but also death in general) could be especially lucid and meaningful and therefore also constituted an important observation about life. The poem was considered a gift to one's loved ones, students, and friends. The tradition began with zen monks.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ________________

Inhale, exhale
Forward, back
Living, dying:
Arrows, let flown each to
each
Meet midway and slice
The void in aimless flight
--
Thus I return to the
source.

-Gesshu Soko, died January 10, 1696, at age 79

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ________________

The truth embodied in the
Buddhas
Of the future, present,
past;
The teaching we received
from the
Fathers of our faith
Can be found at the tip of
my stick.

-Goku Kyonen, died October 8, 1272, at age 56

The story goes that when Goku felt that his death was close, he gathered his monk disciples around him. Sitting up, he gave the floor a single tap, said the above poem, raised his stick, tapped the floor again, cried, "See! See!" Then, sitting upright, he died.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____________

I pondered Buddha's teaching
a full four and eighty years.
The gates are all now
locked about me.
No one was ever here -
Who then is he about to die,
and why lament for nothing?
Farewell!
The night is clear,
the moon shines calmly,
the wind in the pines
is like a lyre's song.
With no I and no other
who hears the sound?

-Zoso Royo died on the fifth day of the sixth month, 1276, at 84

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ________________

Shinsui, died September 9, 1769, at 49:

During his last moment, Shisui's disciples requested that he write a death poem. He grasped his brush, painted a circle, cast the brush aside, and died. The circle— indicating the void, the essence of everything, enlightenment.

1697

[Jundo]

Myogen Steven Stucky, who left this visible world in December due to pancreatic cancer, left us this penned hours before his death ...

DEATH POEM

This human body truly is the entire cosmos
Each breath of mine, is equally one of yours, my darling
This tender abiding in "my" life
Is the fierce glowing fire of inner earth
Linking with all pre-phenomena
Flashing to the distant horizon
From "right here now" to "just this"
Now the horizon itself
Drops away—
Bodhi!
Svaha.

Myogen
12/27/13

Nine Bows, J

[Geika]

Gassho Myogen

[Nameless]

Planning Tomorrow, Living Now

Clicking keys, dimming light
Dark blue sky, nearly night
Feet on floor, subtle peace
Humming air, glowing screen
Breathing in, breathing out
Beating heart, stilling doubt
Purring cat, panting dog
Writing down tomorrow's log

Gassho, John

[Myosha]

As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space,
an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble,
a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightening,
view all created things like this.

Diamond Sutra
(Red Pine translation)

[Myosha]

1717


Gassho,
Myosha

[Eishuu]

What a lovely thread... really like the Hakuin monkey poem. Here is one of my favourites by Ryokan:


The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away,
and the weather is clear again.
If your heart is pure, then all things in your world
are pure.
Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself,
Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the
way.


Gassho
Lucy

[Kaiku]

A bird in a secluded grove sings like a flute.
Willows sway gracefully with their golden threads.
The mountain valley grows the quieter as the clouds return.
A breeze brings along the fragrance of the apricot flowers.
For a whole day I have sat here encompassed by peace,
Till my mind is cleansed in and out of all cares and idle thought
I wish to tell you how I feel, but words fail me.
If you come to this grove, we can compare notes.

Ch'an master Fa-yen (法眼 Hõgen) (The Golden Age of Zen 238, 321 n.31)

[Eishuu]

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.



You do not have to walk on your knees



for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.


You only have to let the soft animal of your body


love what it loves.


Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.


Meanwhile the world goes on.


Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain


are moving across the landscapes,


over the prairies and the deep trees,


the mountains and the rivers.


Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,


are heading home again.



Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,



the world offers itself to your imagination,



calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -



over and over announcing your place



in the family of things.




-Mary Oliver

[Myosha]

“Where there are humans,

You'll find flies,

And Buddhas.”

― Kobayashi Issa


Gassho,
Myosha

[Kaiku]

We meet only to part,
Coming and going like white clouds,
Leaving traces so faint
Hardly a soul notices.

-----------------------------------------

I’m so aware
That it’s all unreal:
One by one, the things
Of this world pass on.
But why do I still grieve?

-both by Ryokan

[Geika]

Thank you, Bobby. Lovely

[Eishuu]

Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent

-Ryokan

[Myosha]

O Snail,
Climb Mount Fuji
But slowly, slowly!
Issa

[Heion]

Like tangled hair,
The circular delusion
Of beginning and end,
When straightened out,
A dream no longer.
-Dogen (translated by Steven Heine)

Lots of wisdom in this thread!

Gassho,
Heion

[Kokuu]

Lovely, Heion. The first line reminds me of this poem by Izumi Shikibu (974-1034):
Lying alone,
my black hair tangled,
uncombed,
I long for the one
who touched it first.


Gassho
Andy

[Kaiku]

Space

Who am I?
Sitting alone,
facing a wall.
Cyber space in the Milky Way blue.
Disconnected modem connected to all.
Nothing but star dust,
we return to that
which we never were.

-Unknown

[Myosha]

I don't stop moving all daylong
before sunset I'm done
back home I wash off my feet and sleep
too tired to notice the mountain moon's passage
birds wake me up from a distant grove
the red sun's disc shines through the pines
today and tomorrow don't differ
the years are all the same.

-Stone house


Gassho,
Myosha

[Myosha]

For the time-being
Words scatter. . .
Are they fallen leaves?

Ruth Ozeki

[Myozan Kodo]

Gassho


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[adrianbkelly]

Snow
falls on snow-
silence

Santoka

[Jishin]

The old pond;
A frog jumps in —
The sound of the water.

Basho

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/20/eja7eby4.jpg

[Myozan Kodo]

Before enlightenment,
The Buddha Hung-Jen
Had dreadful pains of hunger
When he did not eat.
After enlightenment,
The Buddha Hung-Jen
Had dreadful pains of hunger
When he did not eat.

[Jamie]

So many thoughtful poems
Gassho everyone, thank you.

Watermelons and Zen students
grow very much the same way.
Long periods of sitting
till they ripen and grow
all juicy inside, but
when you knock them on the head
to see if they're ready-
sounds like nothing's going on.

Peter Levitt.

[Kaiku]

The Opening of the Trunk

Moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened and the
infinite universe revealed
& the soul is left to wander
dazed & confus'd searching
here & there for teachers & friends.

-Jim Morrison

(Jundo inspired me to use this poet's poem, :D :p [morehappy] , due to a recent thread I posted, lol )

Gassho
Bobby

[Myosha]

Empty-handed, I hold a hoe.
Walking on foot, I ride a buffalo.
Passing over a bridge, I see
The bridge flow, but not the water.

Bodhisattva Shan-hui (善慧), better known as Fu Ta-shih (傅大士) (497-?)

[Myosha]

Sun sets, bell sounds, the mist.
Headwind on the road, the going hard.
Evening Sun at Cold Mountain.
Horses tread men's shadows.

Ching An

[Myosha]

PRECONCEPTIONS
by Milarepa


Just as fog is dispelled by the strength of the sun
and is dispelled no other way,
preconception is cleared by the strength of realization.
Experience them as baseless dreams.
Experience them as ephemeral bubbles.
Experience them as insubstantial rainbows.
Experience them as indivisible space


Gassho,
Myosha

[Saijun]

Talking about food won’t fill your stomach.
Talk about clothing won’t keep out cold.
To be full, eat rice.
To stay warm, wear clothes.
Those who don’t understand
complain it’s hard to get help from Buddha.
Look inside your heart. That’s where Buddha is.
Don’t look for him outside.
--Han Shan

[Jishin]

Talking about food will fill your stomach.
Talk about clothing will keep out cold.
To be empty, eat rice.
To stay cold, wear clothes.
Those who understand complain it’s hard to get help from Buddha.
Look outside your heart. That’s where Buddha is.
Don’t look for him inside.

--Jishin :)

Gassho, Jishin

[Ongen]

Gassho,

Vincent


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[Myosha]

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake


Gassho,
Myosha

[senryu]

One Art
BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

----
Gassho
Senryu

[Nindo]

Somehow the thread about faith reminded me of this poem.
Translation by me; unconventional grammar is intentional.
Look at the dates and then please excuse the gendered language.

Gassho,
Nindo


----
An Sich

Sei dennoch unverzagt! Gib dennoch unverloren!
Weich keinem Glücke nicht, steh höher als der Neid,
vergnüge dich an dir und acht es für kein Leid,
hat sich gleich wider dich Glück, Ort und Zeit verschworen.
　
Was dich betrübt und labt, halt alles für erkoren;
nimm dein Verhängnis an. Laß alles unbereut.
Tu, was getan muß sein, und eh man dir's gebeut.
Was du noch hoffen kannst, das wird noch stets geboren.
　
Was klagt, was lobt man noch? Sein Unglück und sein Glücke
ist ihm ein jeder selbst. Schau alle Sachen an:
dies alles ist in dir. Laß deinen eitlen Wahn,
　
und eh du fürder gehst, so geh in dich zurücke.
Wer sein selbst Meister ist und sich beherrschen kann,
dem ist die weite Welt und alles untertan.
　
　
To Self
　
For all that, don't be despondent! Nevertheless, count not for lost!
Yield to no fortune; stand higher than envy,
delight in yourself and regard it no affliction
even if fortune, place and time have conspired against you.
　
What grieves and nourishes you, consider it your choice;
accept your fate. Leave everything unregretted.
Do what must be done and ere it’s demanded of you.
What you can still hope for, will yet ever be born.
　
What good is it to still lament or praise? His misfortune and his luck
is, to each man, he himself. Look at all things:
this all is in you. Let go of your vain delusion,
　
and before you go on further, go back into yourself.
Whoever is his own master and can restrain himself,
he has conquered the wide world and everything.

- Paul Fleming, 1609-1640

[Kaiku]

Joy in the morning,
Sleep in the evening,
What else?

-Ekon

[Myosha]

Buddhas and ancestors cut to pieces;
The sword is ever kept sharpened.
Where the wheel turns,
The void gnashes its teeth.

Death poem of Shûhõ Myõchõ (1282-1337)

[Myosha]

Yes, I’m truly a dunce
Living among trees and plants.
Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment --
This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.
I wade across streams with bony legs,
And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.
That’s my life,
And the world owes me nothing.

Ryokan

[Myosha]

Mind and Senses

The mind is an organ of thought and objects are set against it:
The two are like marks on the surface of the mirror;
When the dirt is removed, the light begins to shine.
Both mind and objects being forgotten, Ultimate Nature
reveals itself true.

Yung-chia Hsüan-chüeh


Gassho,
Myosha

[Rich]

Thanks for ryokan

Kind regards. /\

[Kaiku]

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.

-Ryōkan
(Written after a thief robbed his hut)

[Myosha]

As flowing waters disappear into the mist
We lose all track of their passage.
Every heart is its own Buddha.
Ease off ... become immortal.

Wake up! The world's a mote of dust.
Behold heaven's round mirror.
Turn loose! Slip past shape and shadow,
Sit side by side with nothing, save Tao.

- Shih-shu, 1703

[Ongen]

Four hours of zazen to go and the sesshin is over.
What did I learn?

There's nothing to it really. Kokushi was an old fool.

Not much of a poem huh?

Gassho

Vincent


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[Nameless]

The sun is rising
Sinking softly out of sight
Midnight crickets chirp

Gassho, John

[Myosha]

Spring has its hundred flowers,
Autumn its moon,
Summer has its cooling breezes,
Winter its snow.
If you allow no idle concerns
To weigh on your heart,
Your whole life will be one
Perennial good season.


Gassho,
Myosha

[Nindo]

from Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, canto #20

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.

I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
after all.)

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

[Myosha]

Pilfered with gratitude:

"Ryokan once wrote;

Blue sky, cold geese honk
On a bare mountain, tree leaves flutter.
At dusk in the village, smoke billows from every house.
Alone with my empty bowl, I head home.

Zen has taught me to experience life as it occurs, experience these fleeting moments of clarity, along with everything else in life, the good and the not so good, the happy and the sad, the blade of grass and the ripples on the pond,yet at the end of the day I try not to become attached to these things. I head home with an empty bowl.

Of course at times this is easier said than done.


Gassho,gassho1
Mike"


Gassho,
Myosha

[JohnsonCM]

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.

Rumi

[Yahantei]

One, seven, three, five.
What you search for cannot be grasped.
As the night deepens,
the moon brightens over the ocean.
The black dragon's jewel
is found in every wave.
Looking for the moon,
it is here in this wave
and the next.

A verse that master Hsueh-t'ou Ch'ung-hsien wrote for a disciple (Translated by Yasuda Joshu Roshi and Anzan Hoshin Roshi, from Cooking Zen, Great Matter Publications. 1996)

[Myosha]

I deplore this vulgar place
where demons dwell with worthies.
They say they're the same,
but is the Tao impartial?
A fox might ape a lion's mien
and claim the disguise is real,
but once ore enters the furnace,
we soon see if it's gold or base.

- Hanshan

[Diarmuid1]

Exposure
Seamus Heaney

It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.

A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,

And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,

Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.

How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends'
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me

As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?

Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls

The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner йmigrй, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne

Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;

Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing rose.

[Myosha]

Venerable Vimalakirti says,

A bodhisattva should regard all living beings as a wise man
Regards the reflection of the moon in water,
As magicians regard men created by magic.
As being like a face in a mirror,
like the water of a mirage;
like the sound of an echo;
like a mass of clouds in the sky;
like the appearance and disappearance of a bubble of water;
like the core of a plantain tree;
like a flash of lightning;
like the appearance of matter in an immaterial realm;
like a sprout from a rotten seed;
like tortoise-hair coat;
like the fun of games for one who wishes to die...

- Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra (http://www.buddhist-canon.com/PLAIN/vimalakirti.htm#c6)

[Kaiku]

O snail
Climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!

- Kobayashi Issa

-----------------------------

From the white dewdrops,
Learn the way
To the pure land.

- Kobayashi Issa



Gassho
Bobby
Sat Today

[Myosha]

Children, I implore you
get out of the burning house now.
Three carts await outside
to save you from a homeless life.
Relax in the village square,
everything's empty.
No direction is better or worse,
East just as good as West.
Those who know the meaning of this
are free to go where they want.


Eyes to hear, ears to see.^^

[Kaiku]

The Sun Will Shine


The sun will shine tomorrow
The rain will somehow end
This is not only a promise
It’s just the way it is


Bad times don’t last forever
The tough times they never stay
The heartache and the let down
Will soon go away


In times of deep sadness
The pain is all too real
And it’s hard to believe
That with time the hurt will heal


The dark clouds that hang above
Will eventually move on
And the storms that dance around
Will soon be gone


Stay strong and keep in mind
That again, the sun will shine

-Unknown

[Nindo]

[hi5]
Good to have you back, Bobby.
Stay strong.

Gassho
Nindo

[Mp]

[hi5]
Good to have you back, Bobby.
Stay strong.

Gassho
Nindo

I second that Bobby ... always enjoy your company! =)

Gassho
Shingen

SatToday

[Myosha]

Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person's affairs.
The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.
Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.
Layman P'ang

[Jishin]

with nowhere to go

from the deep below

great joy resurfaces


What goes down must come up. Hang in there Bobby. :)

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_








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[Troy]

The Sun Will Shine


The sun will shine tomorrow
The rain will somehow end
This is not only a promise
It’s just the way it is


Bad times don’t last forever
The tough times they never stay
The heartache and the let down
Will soon go away


In times of deep sadness
The pain is all too real
And it’s hard to believe
That with time the hurt will heal


The dark clouds that hang above
Will eventually move on
And the storms that dance around
Will soon be gone


Stay strong and keep in mind
That again, the sun will shine

-Unknown

Inspirational, Thank you Bobby.


..sat2day•

[Myosha]

And the end of one's exploring will be
to arrive where we started.
And know the place
for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

[Ongen]

A fence of gnarled wood
Inside nor outside is kept
It's just an old fence


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[Kaiku]

Face a direction
Doesn't matter which way traveled
Closer to destination.
Only Journey.

[Myosha]

In a moonlit night on a spring day,
The croak of a frog
Pierces through the whole cosmos and turns it into
a single family!

Chang Chiu-ch'en