You
could become a
great horseman and help
to free yourself and this world though
only if you and prayer become sweet lovers.
It is a naive man who thinks we are not engaged in a
fierce battle, for I see and hear brave foot soldiers
all around me going mad, falling on the ground
in excruciating pain. You could become a
victorious horseman and carry your
heart through this world like a
life-giving sun though only
if you and God become
sweet lovers.
stilted koans are all monks have
Ikkyü also had a hermitage in Kyoto which he called Katsuroan (Blind Donkey Hermitage), and often stayed at Daitokuji. But increasingly, to the point of anguish, he became disgusted with worldly carryings on at the main temple, shuddering at the…frantic hustling for donations:
Yoso hangs up ladles baskets useless donations in the temple
my style’s a straw raincoat strolls by rivers and lakes
*
ten fussy days running this temple all red tape
look me up if you want to in the bar whorehouse fish market
In 1471, when seventy-seven, Ikkyü revealed his passion for a blind girl, an attendant at the Shuon’an Temple at Takigi. He wrote poems about their affair, some farcical, some very moving. He was self-conscious at the oddness of an old zen monk falling for a young woman, but they spent years together, Ikkyü’s feeling for her growing in intensity:
I love taking my new girl blind Mori on a spring picnic
I love seeing her exquisite free face its moist sexual heat shine
*
your name Mori means forest like the infinite fresh
green distances of your blindness
*
I was like an old leafless tree until we met green buds burst and blossom
now that I have you I’ll never forget what I owe you
poems translated by stephen berg in crow with no mouth
prose introduction by lucien stryk
There
are three miracles of our
Brother Jesus not yet recorded in the Book:
the first that he was a man like you and me; the second that
he had a sense of humor; and the third that he
knew he was a conqueror though
conquered.
Why do
people hate Jesus,
or at least prefer the ethereal dead
version known as Christ? Because Jesus made
outrageous demands: Love your enemy,
renounce material possessions,
give all you have to
the poor.
A
conservative is
someone who admires radicals
centuries after they’re
dead.
Think of the life
of the great Master Jesus Christ
who was the soul of religion — one sees
that from beginning to end there was nothing
but love and forgiveness. The best expression of love
is that love which is expressed in forgiveness.
Those who came with their wrongs, errors,
imperfections, before the love, that was
all forgiven; there was always a
stream of love which
always purified.
This world
is an open sky and also a dustbin,
giving life to some and death to others;
the outcomes are not controlled
by this world.
Press
your finger into the world
and put it to your nose. You may smell
sweetness, or you may smell dung.
Discernment is possible in
these matters.
True hearts
stay awake if love is possible. The
others have no need for beauty, nor hope of
it. If you are holding gold in your hand,
don’t imagine ways to turn it
into mud.
☯️
The Old Fool wears
second-hand clothes and fills his belly
with tasteless food, mends holes to make a
cover against the cold, and thus the myriad affairs
of life, according to what comes, are done. Scolded, the
Old Fool merely says, “Fine.” Struck, the Old Fool falls
down to sleep. “Spit on my face, I just let it dry;
I save strength and energy and give you no
affliction.” Paramita is his style; he
gains the jewel within.
Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
🪷
Forget the body.
Let go of sensations
and obsessions and objects.
Do non-doing to the point that thoughts
cease to arise. Releasing mental constructs and
emotional entanglements, you’ll begin
to flow as a sage. Then let go
of that notion on top
of everything
else.
the lion that was vic chesnutt, may he rest in peace
A deep
and sophisticated
understanding of Buddhism,
Taoism, Zen, Ch’an, philosophy,
meditation technique — none of these
is necessary to attain realization.
They are just as likely to
ensnare you in towers
of complicated
thought.
Abide
in the simple
understanding that
buddha nature is always,
has always been, will always be,
your own nature. Breathe into
that. Breathe out from it.
That is all.
You
can now buy
Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a
five-app bundle of Taoist classics
for iPhone or iPad for less than
the cost of one hardcover
book.
see also
Hexagram 25, Wu Wang / Innocence (The Unexpected)
