Blue Cliff Record -- a.k.a. Biyan Lu (Chinese), Hekiganroku (Japanese), and
Book of Serenity -- a.k.a. Congrong Lu (Chinese), Shoyoroku (Japanese).
Book of Serenity 94
"There is no way to escape having ill health." (Upajjhatthana Sutta: Anguttara Nikaya 5.57)
No escape, Papillon.
Not from this Devil's Island.
All your cleverness, resolve, and luck
Only shuffles your grimy skin
A meter or two within your cell.
No escape: the key to freedom.
The fox feeds on rabbit,
Then the rabbit feeds on fox.
2018 Sep
Blue Cliff Record 19, Book of Serenity 84A great matter weighing on me,
I traveled a thousand kilometers
to see old Jinhua, get his answer.
It took two months.
I lost 10 kilograms.
I arrive in the morning.
A monk meets me at the gate.
I must see Jinhua.
Wait here.
Before he goes he mentions
The master answers every question
By raising one finger.
I sit down on a stone.
The sun passes its zenith.
Just one finger, for all my troubles?
One finger for my life to make sense?
Which finger?
The index finger?
Pointing? Saying one?
The middle finger?
The thumb?
Up? Down? Out like a hitchhiker?
Could old Jinhua want a ride?
What if he raises his pinky?
Or his fourth finger
to show me a ring
of power and commitment?
What if he grabs my hand and holds up one
of my fingers?
Or what if the old man carries a severed finger in a pouch,
taking it out when asked a question,
even as it decayed and stank and was finally
three phalanges rattling in his cupped hand?
In the cool evening I rise,
Walk back down the mountain.
Perhaps I'll make better time on the way home.
2018 Sep
Gateless Gate 3Teachers do this,
Cut off parts of their students --
A finger, a toe, a nose,
A vanity, a limiting story, a jaded detachment --
Whatever: the cut hurts.
There's screaming and blood.
Some teachers offer bandages and prosthetic
Replacements that meet a purpose.
Others don't, but only watch
With silent eyes the dripping wound
To see what the excised part
Had been inhibiting,
Teacher and student alike
Surprised at what emerges,
In wonder of what it might be for.
2018 Sep
Blue Cliff Record 79Everything flawless and perfect --
For all that
No less screwed up, broken, wrong.
Everything a mistake, a punishable offense
For all that
No less elegant, beautiful, exactly right.
Does disrespect present the Buddha's voice?
Does it display the highest principle?
Yes.
As does a cudgel to the solar plexus.
"Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly"
the Roshi Micah said. Hotetsu adds:
and observe the grammar of formal and familiar.
Total liberation from all constraint
Comes with some constraints.
2018 Oct
Blue Cliff Record 35"When numbers get serious, they leave a mark on your door." --Paul Simon
How many friends have you? How many relations?
How many schoolmates, former or current? Colleagues?
With how many people have you sat, in zendo or church or temple?
By how many passers by have you passed?
How many particles of dirt or sand
Have felt the press of your sole?
How many cubic centimeters of air
Have you expelled in laughing?
How many bird species would be
on your life list? How many mammals?
Reptiles, amphibians, fish?
How many on your current week list?
How many trees can you call by name?
How many call yours?
How many leaves have you seen
Bud? Fall?
How many years are yours?
How many yous belong to the years?
You could tally estimates.
That's not necessary.
By numbers uncounted
The dharma fares
North and South,
East and West.
2018 Oct
Blue Cliff Record 5I love the units, their countability,
Three seconds.
Five centimeters, squared or cubed.
Two decades.
Seven days.
One parsec.
Three millennia.
Five minutes.
Twenty kilometers.
Fourteen billion years.
So reassuring and practical this, the mind's mirror.
Working or testifying,
The measure must be taken.
I remember, too, that
Huineng was right to scold Shenxiu:
"The mind is no mirror."
It is made for unity as well as units:
For uncountable time with its two names,
Now and Eternity --
For vastness and tininess indistinguishable.
Caverns measureless are its home.
I have only this to suggest:
Gather wise friends.
2018 Oct
Blue Cliff Record 22, Book of Serenity 24I jumped before I knew
Why, or what.
Neurons out of mind
Sent the slender wriggle
Straight to motor,
Leaving the cerebrum
To mosey to a conclusion
Half a second later: "snake."
Recollection would have it that
I jumped first, and then saw it.
The reptilian god shoots fear right past
the cognizer's models, precious and hapless,
and scrambles time.
Nothing so presents it straight
Like curves.
2018 Oct
Blue Cliff Record 49, Book of Serenity 33She crawls out of her chrysalis,
Fans her wings, notices
She has wings,
Notices she's hungry and that
Her mandibles are gone.
What do I eat now?
Without knowing she can, or how,
She flies.
Not knowing why,
she alights on a flower,
sticks her tongue into the nectar,
has no more questions.
2018 Nov
Blue Cliff Record 51, Book of Serenity 50What this is is
I've come to see Xuefeng --
Is he around?
What this is is
What is this?
What this is is
The staff in my hand, the one in yours,
the gate thrust open, our dusty sandals.
What this is is
What is this?
What this is is
Disappointing guests.
What this is is
My hesitancy to ask.
What this is is
My most recent word.
Just this "just this"
Is
What this is.
Which is?
What this is is
What is this?
2018 Dec
Book of Serenity 75Heraclitus didn't quite say, as we love to quote:
"Change is the only constant" -- which is
Funnier, and truer, than what he did say.
When we've a mind for immutable principle,
Heraclitus must again remind
Everything flows, and nothing stays.
Then, attending to movement,
We miss the constancy to the flow; we don't
See the permanent principle of goneness.
The real, Heraclitus said, is logos -- which is fine
As long as logos isn't reason, seeking assent.
Reality is not an argument. It's a poem.
A poem wants to show itself to you,
Not for you to assent, but to see.
Agreement and disagreement alike misconstrue.
2018 Dec
Ten Verses on Koans XI