Some years ago I lived on Deer Isle in Maine where summer is just a few months of poor sledding. In winter it would get so cold the wood stoves smoke rising out of the chimney would freeze and you would have to climb up a ladder and break it off so the stove could vent. By spring you'd have them smoke columns stacked up like cord wood behind the house so as to keep the door yard clutter to a minimum. First warm day come April they would disappear in a puff of smoke, so to speak.

I recall one we… Continue

In the community of the FifthPatriarch seven hundred emanate monks all understood Buddhism, it was only workman Ro that did not understand Buddhism. However it was workman Ro that received the Masters robe and bowl based on his understanding of the Way of emptiness.

It's my day of rest and frazzled from the politics of the monastery's ordained staff I desperately need solitude. I need to be away from my pager, my telephone and away from my friends. I need the peace only the deep forest can provide. I take the truck in as far as it will go, the edge of the skid road crumbling into Beecher Brook below as I pass. The skidway goes down into the brook and as I cross the truck floor fills with water then drains as it climbs the opposite bank. I park the truck in… Continue

At night, deep in the mountains,
I sit in meditation.
The affairs of men never reach me here;
Everything is quiet and empty,
All the incense has been swallowed up by
the endless night.

My robe has become a garment of dew,
Unable to sleep, I walk out into the woods-
Suddenly, above the highest peak, the full
moon appears.

From; DEW DROPS ON A LOTUS LEAF
Ryokan, Zen Poems

Perfection of a kind was what he was after
The poetry he invented was easy to understand
He knew human folly like the back of his hand
He had an interest in armies and fleets
When he laughed respectable senators laughed at his feet
But when he cried the little children died in the streets

Tom Rapp & W.H. Auden