Sliver of what

what life do you live before language
before the vivid lunatic dances
trips the tongue lust relic last
fabricating death in wistful neon campfire stories
desperate wit raging into that electric night
denying real death
honest unsighing self-true death
the one thriving death of all

don't you know there is nothing to die for
but death itself

what do you dream before you wake the earth
before Aristotle presumes to speak for us rocks and woods
all of us the craggy brained sensitive mercy
us smooth beatific stones sitting hard hermits in
babbling brooks where we are
here here giving moment to moment to what we are
edgeless natives of rain
modest conspicuous nature here
reading moon books and smiling at what we don't know
smashing the haunted damn pottery of Greek ghosts
Greek slivers always darting away from wild sane attention
our pure attention
one thriving attention for all
the life lived
just lived
and lived and lived
and lived

what do you do with that
when you can't say anything
like a lotus grinning in the muck
finding freedom here
wherever here
hearing where nature generously allows flowers in mud
what do you say
can we say nothing
and mean it

Into the forest slowly

Breathing mouthfuls of reality
I have seen my first
Sincere thought
It is patience offered to desire
The dry crumbling of thorns that
Would snag a calm
Wandering heart
The very end of suffering
As star birds make their
Death flight to the moon
And what is resigned
Begins in earnest
Would you my patient woods
Have me now?

mooooving water

we praise moving water while building dams
trying to hold it all in our greedy minds
every step
another Buddha to kill
Buddhas as far as my eyes can see
no further than
the span of a breath

Dark rock

Lightning flashes
Limestone hills bright
Exploding into
Being
Leaves no trace
A dark rock
Unmoved

Laughing life

I prepared myself for
A life of service
So I began to laugh
Leaving no
Trace in
Heaven

Love is here

Poor moon
Poor victim of poets
Let's come off it
Who wants a woman
With a cloud between
Her thighs?
Love walks the earth
The moon up high
Is here

Human confusion

The world is vast
Incredibly vast
But there is nothing strange
In being human
Eyes wide open
It's a gentle confusion

Dog burps

A dog stalks moths in
Florescent light
Walking away
Burps with her
Whole body

Speechless

Bodhidharma has no beard
And I am without words
The moon is neither rising
Nor sinking
All this space
And no room for self

Petals guffaw

Bending over in
The garden
I nearly fell over
The flowers laugh
Very
Very slowly

“Violence” - some words from the Buddha before his enlightenment

"Everyone is guilty." But not in the Catholic sense. A Buddhist takes responsibility for their own heart.

From here: http://zenjournal.tumblr.com/post/4349403030/violence-some-words-from-the-buddha-before-his

Violence gives birth to fear.
Just look at people and their quarrels.
I will speak of my dismay
And the way that I was shaken.
Seeing people thrashing about like fish in little water
And seeing them in conflict with each other,
I became afraid.

The world is completely without a core.
Everywhere things are changing.
Wanting a place of my own,
I saw nothing not already taken.
I felt discontent at seeing only conflict to the very end.
Then I saw an arrow — hard to see,
Embedded in the heart.
Pierced by this arrow, people dash about in all directions.
When the arrow is pulled out,
The do not run, and they do not sink.
-
Interpretation and elaboration:

“The radical suggestion is… that the issue is in your own heart. That’s what triggers the running around… it is obvious that many people are not willing to look at some part of themselves. They get involved in addictive behaviors, they get very busy with work, social relationships, entertainment… The fear resides in our own hearts or minds. The task in Buddhism is that it’s REALLY useful to take that arrow out, to take responsibility for what’s in here… to find the roots of our distress. Someone has to do it.
…
“We try to help the world the best we can… one of the ways we help is to have done the inner work so that we can meet the world calmly and peacefully… to support people and help people by being calm and peaceful in times of distress. If we’re running around in dismay, then we can’t really help people.”

Gil Fronsdal from a recent Zencast.org talk, “Our Attachments, given at the Insight Meditation Center.

You Zen Like a Sailor

that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets
I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind

-Ikkyu Sojun

Small Change

like the sun
i carry what is small
buddha's half smile
evaporating from hot
distant bricks
im in the world
there is no reason
to believe

"It Doesn't Matter"

I wonder about
the roach I found
drowned in a dog's
food bowl
I wonder if he was afraid
of the future
it doesn't matter now
the future is humble
like fungus
growing in the dark

but then
sunlight
waking light
I have seen what is
good in me
what in me just begins
fruiting in this light

I wonder if words know how
philosophies spring up
from feeling
how action itself
seems in a trance
and tongues
mothers of storm
cast far their hardy seeds
into the many winds
of difference

but then
a sharp tongue will
carve out many shapes
and become dull
then
let these words
be humble
let thought never
injure truth

I have learned
it does matter

Natives in Rain

broken trees
broken bones
in edgeless tempests
of gentleness
all is gone

broken wisdom
broken brains
in love all is transparent
all see it
laughing in the rain

ManMan

to be a god among man
appeals only to man

seeing through the heart
i am not a man
i aspire to nothing above
nor below
i am only a man

No Imagination

kamma before Venus
love brooding over skill
let it be said
I had a clear, bright heart
and no imagination

did i eat

to those who would
feed on me
I ask only
that you feast on
living flesh
there is no taste
among the dead and
dreaming
there before a moonless night
I close my eyes
and walk
burning my
hut to the ground
where is reflection?
where are the ripples that
become children
on a moonless
deathless
dreamless
night?

did i fruit

goofin at the cosmic table
the magi carving up cosmic fruit
boundless cosmic fruit
no beginning
no end fruit
dewy tao fruit
under the bodhi tree fruit
take it into thee
let serpents bury sweet cool noses
into your robes
into parade rattle fruit
into bones a long way from home
into all that jazz fruit
let gentle words rot
and give you such fruit
you'll never go hungry
while you're horny
while the pelvis opens up
like a bowl for alms
open the door
lie on the floor
and remain calm
time and space
are just fruit
all that
fruit
that energy bloss-
oming
cosmic fruit

furry furnace

you were young
a thin black cat
feeling fire between
his eyes
a giddy mutant
smelling of smoke
and orchids
a mangy dancer in
moon dust
they threw bottles
at your head
threw spears of light
at the dark side of
man you never see
the face of man
on forest's floor
leaves of grass
bought by the ounce

then
through the sand
castles in their mouths
from the angelic
whispers of jesters
you heard the king's demands
you owed them guts
and fur
the fur your ancestors
wrapped around silent machines
in the night
and you gave up a thousand dream
bodies to gentle laughing lions
shaped your unbridled
entropy and
sniffed out alien mischief
in scorched fields
read horoscopes to particles
read sutras to lizards
but you couldn't shape
the world of squares

it busted up
the stars in your eyes
reeling in moebius ten strips
in a rollercoaster blooming
strange flowers all
the way down
no one really saw it
the distant planet
all it had was motion
and time
beauty blew through you
and swirled crackling
around the others
but you couldn't shape
the world of squares
the corpse of the Illuminati
still dancing on
strings held by
scared children

woe is the freakyheaded
child who loveslovesloves
even the boot heel pressed
into his heart
wild is the burst of light
the inflation
of smooth starry blowoffs
the byzantine puppets
of stardust grokking
how stars died for their
sinlessness
long gone lights of
true benevolence
asking for no penance
for they gave what
they came to give
and yet they called
to you
to pledge fealty
to beauty

you couldn't shape
what has no shape
you know it now
why you couldn't change
what is only change with
a face
you couldn't see it
until the faces all changed
giving generations
to the earth
life to the tomb
the mask dissolved in
its own energy
and you saw the true face
the face of nobody
the cool water that
a long year's desert
concealed in transparency
it was zen
and the bald-faced
love of a woman
of nobody
you are nobody's fool

now
you are young
a thin black cat
feeling fire between
his shoulders
nowhere to go today
but something's always
happening