Meet my new toy.
In my own case, it's not yet what it seems: I walk a lot.
Even hike, admittedly with two sticks.
But I absolutely cannot stand in a queue.
I have obtained it to get in line for vaccinations and such.
I like it; amazing what all I can store under the seat.
I'm
sure it will come in even more handy later. 😄
What with the Second Law and all.
I think I will call it Lily, as it is my lily pad where I can sit and wait for whatever turns up.
A frog's way of sitting is much
better than our zazen. I always admire their practice. They never get
sleepy. Their eyes are always open, and they do things intuitively in an
appropriate way. When something to eat comes by, they go like this:
gulp! They never miss anything, they are always calm and still. -- Shunryu Suzuki
In the inn that is this world
ReplyDeletePeople come and go in a flash.
The moon shines on the hill bamboo,
Alone I sit and hear the kingfishers.
Spring rain, a pondful of frogs:
Going in and out, like the drum beat,
Chanting and turning a thousand sutras.
What is the use of reading texts?
All my life I have lacked cleverness,
My early learning was sleeping beneath the trees.
-- Poems of Cheongheodang (1520–1604) tr. Whitfield and Park
If you want to comprehend this essence, you should know that the voices of frogs and worms, the sound of wind and raindrops, all speak the wonderful language of the dharma and that birds in flight, swimming fish, floating clouds, and flowing streams all turn the dharma wheel. -- Bassui
ReplyDeleteThe luminous moon drifts by so lightly,
ReplyDeleteThe sutra hall lies silent without a sound.
Bits of moonlight pierce the cracks between the bamboo,
Its round refulgence perches in the intersecting pine branches.
The dew dampens the nests filled with noisy swallows,
The wind combs the grasses filled with croaking frogs.
I sit with the master after the ceremony is over
As, face to face, we straighten out our robes.
-- Shiyan, in Daughters of Emptiness tr./ed. Beata Grant
furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto
ReplyDeletean ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water -- Bassho
At my shady house,
ReplyDeleteMy two legs stretched lazily,
I find endless joy
In hearing the summer frogs,
Singing in a hillside field.
-- Ryokan (tr. Nonoyuki Yuasa)
Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long time,
ReplyDeleteand at last he says, ‘I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for —
I wonder if there ain’t something the matter with him — he ’pears to look
mighty baggy, somehow.’ And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and
hefted him, and says, ‘Why blame my cats if he don’t weigh five pound!’ and
turned him upside down and he belched out a double handful of shot. And
then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man — he set the frog down
and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.
-- Mark Twain
What a seat!
ReplyDeleteIn the evening Jupiter, bright, resplendent.
In the morning Venus, resplendent, bright.
-- Shonin Risa Bear