The old woman grieving tears or no tears?! That’s the question: wet or dry? To jump into the water you get wet. No separation. To grieve you shed tears. Immerse yourself in your life! No holding back. That’s Zen! Yet staying present in your experience. Zen is not about experiencing dryness or stillness but dryness or stillness within the experience. Only the old woman would know— plunging into the depth of grief. Losing herself completely in the totality of lif

One day Master Zhaozhou was outside the monastery and an old woman came along carrying an empty basket. He asked her: “Where are you going?” We all run around with that empty basket wanting this, wanting that. Expecting demanding: food, knowledge, love etc. Zhaozhou is asking, where are you going? A poignant question for all of us. She is desperate: If I can’t get it, I have to seal it. Life owes me something, even if I have to steal it… Cheating the wife, cheating the gove

II How did this happen? Ordinary concepts… So futile. A self…a bubble popping. How many are there? This one was so hidden, so close that it over layed all my vision. So near that I viewed through it…a filter. I thought I knew this, that I understood it. I knew nothing, understand nothing. Wow.  What is there, to be nothing? How does nothing let go of something? ~Choki From Behind the Fence #ZenBuddhism #FromBehindtheFencePoetry #Zenpoetry #poetry #SouthernPalmZenGroup #prison

I. I saw myself today, almost for the first time? The ego? The super-ego? Just words. The deep-rooted character I play; the ultimate perspective of . . .me? At my core, at my being: an overlay. I hope I don’t lose this–did I just kill it? This sense of in touchness with the me be before me. Under the thin membrane between myself, and reality. . . if I can maintain this. . . will it be long before I pop? ~Choki #ZenBuddhism #Zen #ego #superego #self #poetry #hope #character #r

Poems from Behind the Fence: Eventuality Life is but a dewdrop Reflected in a dewdrop We are born Into a world of tears No future…No Past… Only the eternal now We remain asleep Dreaming of dreams Until we realize somehow Myriad Dharmas Through sudden awakening! Right here, right now! All at once The moment between moments ~Kakushin 2015 Artwork by Kakushin Artwork by Kakushin 2015 #ZenBuddhism #eternity #dreams #Zenpoetry #poetry #dharma #SouthernPalmZenGroup #pr

Dozan’s landscape is famous for its misty mountains and rivers.  But when you go there, you see only rocks and water. Empty of all attributes.  That’s it. The real beauty is in the mysterious flow of life, the constant coming and going. Mona Lisa’s smile is frozen for half a millennium. Capturing the image of ineffable beauty.  That’s what poetry and painting does, the mind creating an image, whenever  every smiling face expresses in a unique way buddha nature, lighting up fo

A Distorted View of Individuality, by M. Horaku Each of us and everything around us is a beautiful, complete manifestation of the Silent Self here in the realm of form (the Relative).  We are an individual wave in the ocean.  The reason for this is because the Absolute realm (emptiness) cannot know Itself without the Relative realm (form) and the Relative cannot know Itself without the Absolute.  This is the subject/object duality of Reality as-it-is. What our “goal” or “dest

“Holding up empty space scooping up valley water to build a stupa and create a Buddha image.” Commentary on Dogen’s chapter Space page 96. All endeavors arise from energy.  But this energy is not ours  it’s the universal energy which flows through us.  We give it direction.  Our intentions decide which form that energy will take.  Whether we use it for selfish or unselfish ends.  So the pivotal point is our intentions; intention being more important than form. Thus we can use

One of my Hospice patients used my Buddha statute as a door stopper.  She did not know Buddha, nor was she aware that this was a religious statue. I picked it up without words, placed it back, and offered a flower saying: “The Buddha is the Awakened One.  Sometimes the Buddha is a door stopper, sometimes a door opener.”  She was overcome with shame because of the ignorance, at the some time delighted to face the Buddha.  And we both cracked up laughing. Sometimes the Buddha i

Remember the first of the Ten Grave Precepts?  “Do not kill.” While this translation is easier for Western people to grasp, the Japanese word “fu” actually means “non” so the correct rendering is “non-killing.” You see Eastern view is that life does not end but changes form or is reborn.  The notion of killing or ‘death’ presupposes the substantial reality of that which is killed and that which kills.  But in the standpoint of the world of Zen, there are no such separate obje