9/ The uncarved block contains all possibilities. Its renderings are wonder and beauty. From One it yields many. From No-thing, myriad somethings. From Love it produces Itself. The uncarved block is clear, lucid, solid as Reality, Yet it has no qualities, No measure, no values. It contains Life But does not hold it. Secure, it […]
10/ This is one of those mornings when I stare into blankness and wonder what to say about it. The pauses are protracted, punctuated by an occasional still – born thought that doesn’t gain traction. I sit quietly receptive, willing to wait. Mind reminds me of the kind of willingness of which Lao Tzu […]
11/ For the past fifteen years or so, I have watched the sunlight and the lamplight play across a pair of 1800 year olds on my dining room buffet. They’re Han Dynasty (200 BC – 200 AD) Chinese terracotta funeral figures, about 15 inches tall; one is an Archer with wide sleeved, flowing arms outstretched […]
12/ I have approximately 23,336 days today on my body’s odometer. Mind and body are showing a lot of road. As Leonard Cohen puts it: “I ache in the parts I used to play.” The bones ache, the gut aches, the brain aches. Everything leaks too! The contraption is always in the garage for […]
13/ It seems I’ve broken the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not give up!” a lot lately. I have given up practically everything I don’t need. Well, everything I don’t think I need. There’s a kind of abandonment of thought in favor of simple being. It’s as if the fist of my mind has relaxed. There’s […]
14/ “He abides in the Self, detached from all activities, mental or physical…true happiness belongs to such a master-idler…” ( Unknown Zen Master ) Life seems so much like an experiment in doing, in selecting, in editing our story to leave out the bad parts and leave in the good. We are daily at […]
16/ When two realities collide, we’re in for a helleva surprise! I’m talking about that mouthless scream we all have when we see we’re wedged tight between our contradictions; when we’re in such a tight place we can’t breathe, and yet somehow we must! At first, the old tricks do the trick and we […]
17/ Truth keeps bumping and banging into me. Last night and again this morning, I am both confronted and somehow comforted by this constant Sharpe thrust of reality. It’s invasive like a scalpel; it removes what’s left of the egoic self like a cure for cancer. But not in one merciful stroke! The trouble […]
18/ We live in a kind of “underlife” in the shadows of what neuroscience recognizes as six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise. Oh yes, and joy! That’s the one that, (like the other five that also come and go) keeps that other five from totally overwhelming us! It makes for an occasionally agreeable […]
19/ One of my favorite Songs of Loss and Sorrow from way back in those hurtin’ days (and one which may still put in a compelling appearance when that “lovin’feelin’ “ button gets pressed) goes, in part, like this: Someone left the cake out in the rain And I don’t think that I can take […]