Blue Cliff Record -- a.k.a. Biyan Lu (Chinese), Hekiganroku (Japanese), and
Book of Serenity -- a.k.a. Congrong Lu (Chinese), Shoyoroku (Japanese).
Blue Cliff Record 76
Every test I've been given
I handed back blank,
Or bearing at most an idle doodle.
Still my teacher gives me passing marks,
On the basis of which, I claim my dinner.
So blind, my teacher.
So blind, this student,
Wandered up from mountain's foot.
2018 Feb
Blue Cliff Record 74Every day, the same thing.
Every day, it's a fresh, spontaneous,
Gesture of total freedom.
Like a spouse to spouse saying, "I love you":
Deadly.
2018 Feb
Blue Cliff Record 11, Book of Serenity 53Evening shadows stretch east and
I have passed Today Today.
I think probably you have too. How could we not?
Still, this feeling of having been somewhere else is a
Morning fog that doesn't lift, a delusion
The very nonsense of which encourages its recurrence.
Perhaps I'll swing by the Zen bar on the corner
To hoist a pint of dregs and be thereby intoxicated until
Tomorrow is Today.
2018 Mar
Blue Cliff Record 24, Book of Serenity 60The sun, low in the western sky, asks, "Have you come?"
I ask back, "Will you go?"
The sun, low in the eastern sky, asks, "Will you go?"
I ask back, "Have you come?"
What strange beauty there is in this:
That the blunt true answer to all four questions,
Is both "Yes, obviously,"
and "Quite impossible."
I dodge so as not to spoil it.
2018 Mar
Book of Serenity 87"To say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not." (Aristotle, defining True)
Words of being and non
Need a structure
To wrap themselves around,
To bloom purple, and seed.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, say,
Or, what might not be different,
The tree of the delusion of permanent separate essence,
Hosts the pretty parasite,
Supports and feeds its ontological categories.
And if that tree collapses?
Bwahahaha!
2018 Mar
Gateless Gate 1Dear God, I pray,
For I am sick as a dog, and have no power to heal myself.
It's a dog's life -- "a bitch and then you die" --
And this sad world has been going to the dogs for some time.
The morning paper's dolorous tidings wound like darts.
Yes, I have known beauty and wonder --
Ecstatic shivers and inundations of grace.
Is there not ugliness, too, and tedium?
And, worse, pain? Is there not cruelty?
Some say that loveliness alone is true --
That suffering is delusion, a perceptual distortion.
This will not do, for hurt and wrong are real.
Others proffer that joy and grief are linked somehow,
Co-dependent enablers of each other.
There is something to this, sometimes, maybe,
Though it is not ultimate.
Dear God, I pray,
Sick as a dog and powerless,
I have asked you if there is some light behind every darkness
And been requited in your thunderous, silent No.
In this negative space, this despair,
Where dark is only dark,
May I learn to love unremitting sorrow.
God, show my heart the way to love it
Doggedly.
2018 Jul
Book of Serenity 18I smile at your joke, or giggle;
Rebuff your criticism, or make penitent resolutions;
Let sadness in the back door,
or anger out the front;
Brush my teeth, scratch an itch,
Respond curtly, become pensive.
In each of these:
Am I expressing absolute liberation?
Or reactive habit?
If there is no difference,
Practice is a waste of time.
If there is no difference,
Practice has born fruit.
2018 Jul
Gateless Gate 7, Book of Serenity 39“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” ― Norman Maclean
Somewhere in that breakfast eating and washing
The extra stopped adding itself.
"Rice" and "bowl"
And "me" and "thee"
And "that" and "this"
Disappeared behind
Quotation marks, which, embarrassed,
Departed after.
Norman said it would eventually happen.
The river wasn't long, though,
Running through, floating me back,
In time for lunch.
2018 Aug
Gateless Gate 31, Book of Serenity 10There is the going straight on that one may fail to do --
the possibility of erroneous wandering.
There is the going straight on that one can't not do --
the impossibility of deviation from exact straightness,
howsoever winding the path.
Hotetsu advises clarity on the latter
Antecedent to regrets and resolutions
Regarding the former.
How to arrive at this clarity?
(Or is it clarity that you have already arrived at this clarity?
Or clarity that you have already arrived at clarity that you have already...)
A little intention doesn't seem to hurt.
Not too much.
Mount Wutai holds up its finger;
Nothing is concealed.
Straight on through sees Zhaozhou;
Nothing is revealed.
2018 Aug
Book of Serenity 98What is "intimate with it"?
What is intimate with it?
What is it?
What is intimate?
Always, ubiquitous perfection encounters ceaseless mistake,
Continuously, the call to know it encounters the impossibility of not.
Therefore:
Q: What is intimate with it?
A: What is intimate with it?
When it comes to intention, to prayer,
here's mine:
Let this always and never suffice.
2018 Aug
Ten Verses on Koans X
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