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Kshanti Paramita
PATIENCE
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What Does It Mean to Be Zen?
To do nothing?
Think nothing?
Be nothing?
Impossible.
To be Zen
is just to be yourself—
not name nor job nor history,
not likes nor dislikes,
thought or no-thought,
desire or despair.
But what is self?
Where does self reside?
(Hint: In what we do for others.)
Most difficult of all
is to meet yourself
where you are,
and abide there
completely
just as you are
accepting whatever arises
from moment to moment.
All else happens on its own accord.
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Monkeymind Market
Like the best convenience store in the world,
the mind is always open.
Its job is to work non-stop,
offering a thought here,
a memory there,
attempting to sway you with a new plan
at the check-out counter,
an impulse buy you can’t refuse.
Some purchase everything in sight,
desperate for satisfaction.
Some pick up each item,
turn it over endlessly
only to put it back down.
Some look for the best quality,
the limited edition,
others only for a bargain.
Some try to smash the shelves,
sending the products
tumbling to the ground.
So don’t waste any more time!
Sort through the destruction
looking for fragments.
Just taking stock,
putting each thing in its place,
observing, then finally
discovering
the empty spaces
between aisles,
such fertile ground
to plant
all those
fragrant,
rich seeds.
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Speak to Me
They say the Buddha’s first words
after enlightenment
were a poem.
Entering the hermitage,
the poet travels deep into
the guest-house of the body.
Though the walls are thin
the floors are bare
the ceiling cracked
and the rain pours through,
here human nature
entwines with nature.
Speak gently.
Do not judge others harshly
lest you yourself be judged.
Choose your words wisely.
Hold your tongue when angry.
Just so, there’s a circle in the ceiling
for viewing the moon,
a reflecting pool
of the sphere of the heart
empty and full.
What you say about others
returns in what is said about you.
The moon on the water,
becomes one with the water,
past nesting in future,
no need for more words.
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Teabowl Zen
—for Japan, after the quake
Does beauty arise
from ash and ruin,
like the glaze of the teabowl
born from the fire?
You either build
or you destroy.
Turn toward the pain.
Let it sear into you.
Remember the harm
you have done to the earth.
Vow to repay the earth
for its kindness.
These scars will be
our path to compassion,
our mistakes
the road to a peaceful future
more valuable
than the purest gold.
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On Modesty
He called himself the farmer of Katsushika,
and thirty other names, moving ninety-three times,
following the movement of seas, waterfalls, islands, the moon.
His father was a mirror polisher for the Shogun.
He captured Mt. Fuji from every perspective,
his eye like a fox, like a camera.
He wanted to live to ninety, but after making thirty thousand prints,
Hokusai died at eighty-nine, saying:
If heaven gives me even five more years, I shall
surely become a great artist.
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Simplicity
Insight is the gift
of seeing reality as it is.
Not as it was,
nor as we wish it to be
but just this,
just this,
just this.
Go ahead and complicate things
if you like.
When you figu...
