The bee moves on (Manzoku-an 2)

Somewhere out back

the seven-year-old cherry

takes up its found duty

teaching evanescence

 

I sometimes don't make it out to the hut for two or three days at a time, especially in rain or snow. I've reached the age of more or less permanently camping in the easy chair, medications at hand, scarf wrapping neck, wall-gazing like Bodhidharma but with perhaps less intent, my sitting interlaced with napping, like Daughter's very old dog who lives with us still.

Son or Beloved bring me teas and nibblets. This perks me up, and seems to do them some good as well.

The thought experiments I've been sporadically attending to have to do with: Occam's Razor and entropy.

Occam's idea, not completely original to him but close enough, is that there is no call to multiply entities needlessly. That is, if you fell off the cliff due to your own carelessness, you need not also attribute the fall to interference in your short life by a demon. 

Applying Occam will tend to lead one toward a monistic materialism devoid of teleology, which many physical scientists hold either explicitly or implicitly, for reasons. "Literary criticism is a branch of biology" -- I. A. Richards.

Core Buddhism as it has come down to us does not have a lot of new ideas: 

1. there is suffering,
2. some suffering is self-inflicted,
3. stop that,
4. here's how.

It stands up well under Occam. 

Buddhism has acquired a lot of cultural accretions, some of which go back to the first generation or soon after. Many -- if not most -- of them may not stand up well under Occam.

Entropy can be thought of in lay terms as "everything runs down." 

To assemble what we may call a state or object, we must find and supply additional energy to the amount originally embodied in it to maintain it as such; otherwise it becomes other stuff. 

A car becomes not a car if it is set up on blocks and its wheels taken away. Leave it there long enough and it becomes an unwieldy and rather forlorn flowerpot.

Combine the razor and entropy when looking at the Four Truths and we get a pretty easily tested life engine that strikes me as having some ontological staying power.

Buddha's charioteer brought him to see the Four Sights, the first three of which were signs of entropy: old age, illness and death. The fourth was asceticism, a somewhat extreme response to the first three, which appealed to the young man and led to his years of practicing some rather severe yogas, as if punishing himself for being subject to entropy. 

After a rather simple meal offered to him, that is, some energy input to maintain his state as a living being, he decided against punishment and proclaimed a Middle Way: live without either seeking too great a buffer against entropy or too little. Entropy just is.

The bee checks out the cherry blossoms for at most a few days. The petals fall. The bee moves on. 

 

The best way is not difficult

It only excludes picking and choosing.
-- Xinxin Ming tr. Pajin

 

Manzoku-an 1

 Slow moving illness

 provides time to review

things done, not done:

release them all

Sitting in the new hut, Manzoku-an, or Hermitary of Quite Enough, she is running out of needs.

Buddha's great discovery was re-discovered millennia later. It's called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Because dharmas (things or beings) are not, or do not have, states, but are bundles of energy that is arriving and departing, they are ephemeral. All are equal, all equally evanescent. Resting from concern or anguish over that which is as it is, nothing need stop us from enjoying ourselves, as we might an evening of fireflies.

Whether I sit or I lie,
My spirit roams with the origin of things.
Singing alone or rhyming alone,
My joy runs to the edge of the sky.
-- Songs of National Preceptor Wongam (1226–1292) tr. Whitfield, Park

 

 

無處 13

無處 13 

 Last day in this hut, she takes in

sun, shadow, familiar walls;

collected things seem to her

reluctant as she to leave

The farm has passed beyond her strength and will, and she turns toward town.

Though we do not preach the doctrine,
Unasked the flowers bloom in spring;
They fall and scatter,
They turn to dust. 

--Ikkyu, tr. R. H. Blyth

無處 12

無處 12

Laptop and altar, face the sangha,

Bow and bow again, repeating words,

Shaving (being shaved), 

Becoming (being remade)

 

It's April 2020, the pandemic is in full swing, and this in-person transition from private to public nun-hood takes place by remote means. Some forty people attend. Shonin's spouse handles the handing over of razor, robes and bowls.

If you have a rule, go by the rule; if you have no rule, go by the example.
-- comment on verse appended to 85th case of the Blue Cliff Record, tr. Cleary

無處11

無處11

Second Rohatsu in the hut, she feels

cycles of living/not living,

fallen leaves and fallen foxes

fallen snowflakes, falling rain





Sesshin, kinhin, walking meditation, twenty people shuffling gently on the laptop screen behind her; she picks up her cup in passing and pauses to count starlings. When did they begin to stay all winter?

The cries of crickets are already scarce and far between. 

The trees and grass have lost their proud summer colors. 

The long night often requires a new filling of my censer. 

Chill on my skin forces upon me a pile of thick garments. 

Let us use our diligence while we may, my gentle friends, 

Time flies like an arrow and lingers not a moment for us. 

--Ryokan, tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa, Zen Poems of Ryokan, 75

無處 10

無處 10

A plague strikes; she moves to the hut

for ten days. Wheezing Heart Sutra

is hard, so just think the words

and pretend it is not thinking 

 

 

In the first week of March, 2020, the farm's gate is closed on advice of the government. It turns out she has already inhaled something. Things seem a little crazy in the hospitals out there, so she elects to sit it out alone, visiting the family through the laptop's video camera. She treks to the hut with baskets of food and sets up cough-keeping. Not sufficiently aware of her precarity to be frightened, she lives slowly, cooks small meals, drinks homely teas, wonders how the little dog is doing.

Without hindrance, the mind has no fear.
--Heart Sutra

無處 9

無處 9

Bright windows prove helpful

as old eyes look for needle's next

plunge. Where will it come out?

Every time, surprise

  

Her teacher tells her she is a nun. She begins sewing a black robe. It's too hot in here for that, so she pokes a hole in the wall, to run a fan. For a break, she sits in the shade of the cottonwoods, sipping switchel. Quail run across her legs, one by one.

Let go of emptiness and come back to the brambly forest.
Riding backward on the ox, drunken and singing;
Who could dislike the misty rain
pattering on your bamboo raincoat and hat?
In empty space you cannot stick a needle.
-- attr. Dongshan Liangje, The Five Ranks tr. Leighton in
Cultivating the Empty Field, 77

無處 8

 無處 8

The old woman adopts 

technology in the hermitary

and prepares to sit zazen

with people from everywhere

This image is from 2019, with no pandemic in sight. She discovers an online sangha and becomes involved, supplementing her local participation and broadening her considerably limited experience.

Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization for this and for that. This is not only practised while sitting, it is like a hammer striking emptiness; before and after, its ringing pervades everywhere. How can it be limited to a place? 

-- Dogen, Bendowa tr. Hoshin and Dainen

無處 7

 無處 7

She chases light with her cot and desk

in winter, looking south,

in summer, looking north.

in the morning, sun. At night, stars

 

With the large windows, which she had retrieved from a salvage pile, she finds company in sunbeams, songbirds, even a passing fox. At night, lying on her cot, she discovers the Milky Way entangled in bare twigs and branches. What is there to discuss about koans that is not like arguing over the color of the sky?

Out of the way, I don’t seek the carriages of the eminent.
At dawn pear-blossom rain splashes my secluded window,
At dusk I borrow fragments of stars to mend the broken tiles.

-- Wang Duanshu (1621–ca. 1680), tr. Zong-Qi Cai

 

無處 6

無處 6

After snow, deluge. 

The hut travels a bit 

toward the creek, expounding

the first noble truth

Awakening to find trees and fences down, the old woman instinctively checks her pulse, as if to discover how many beats remain. When we are told we are one with the universe, we nod in agreement, but also tend to grab something and hold on.

 

Of all the waters in the world
The Ocean is greatest.
All the rivers pour into it
Day and night;
It is never filled.

--Chuang-Tzu, tr. Thomas Merton

無處 5

 無處 5

Tramping through unexpected drifts 

she finds the hut even more silent

trees fold into themselves

road noises vanish, birds hunker down

 

 

 

Delighting in the quietude, though she finds even the interior of the hut bright enough to make her squint. The old woman makes tea and gazes in wonder at the distant hills. "It's like New Hampshire," she thinks, never having been to New Hampshire. The distant hills remain themselves.

 

When Layman P'ang took leave of Yao Shan, Shan ordered ten Ch'an travellers to escort him to the gate. The Layman pointed to the snow in the air and said, "Good snowflakes­; they don't fall in any other place." -- Blue Cliff Record, tr. Thomas Cleary and J. C. Cleary

 

無處 4

無處 4

Han Shan was not young

his ability to scale slick rock faces

in rainy winter stuns her; what

does falling down on her pasture path mean

 

 

She sits by her space heater in the hut reading of Han Shan's adventures in a thin robe high in the mountains year round and shivers at the thought. Just getting back to the house after an evening's introspection will be enough adventure for her old bones. Is there anything left in her flashlight's batteries, she wonders. The bridge! That rushing high water! Thus the exurbs become wilderness. 

 

Down to the stream to watch the jade flow
or back to the cliff to sit on a boulder
my mind like a cloud remains unattached
what do I need in the faraway world

--Cold Mountain (Han Shan) tr. Red Pine

無處 3

無處 3 

Home-dyed blue muslin and cranberry thread

stubby fingers advance a millimeter

something something Shakyamuni

eyes cloud over, hands shake

 

Promising, with thin fabric, to make promises to herself, she takes up the unaccustomed needle. Sew a straight line to represent walking a straight path.

 

Though there is no space even for needle to enter,
Yet it controls all the mountain peaks around.
It is not unusual for a tiny particle to contain the whole world.
Mt Sumeru enters into a mustard seed and becomes one with it.

-- Songs of Preceptor Naong (1320–1376) tr. Whitfield and Park

 

無處 2

無處 2

Quietly hazel roots explore duff

twitching past rotting cottonwood

to sip snowmelt as it rushes past.

old brain trustingly mimics hazel

 

 

With the little dog, she investigates the nearby river. Water flows over stones, never the same water twice, but also never the same stones twice. A hazel tree attends hazel-ness. An osprey hammers the water surface and carries away surprised protein.

Fish and dragons live in the water without being aware
And they move around with the currents and the waves.
Since from the beginning they never left it, they neither gain nor lose,
If there were no delusions, then whence might enlightenment come?

 

-- Collected Poems of Muuija (1178–1234) tr. Whitfield and Park

無處 1 (new series)

無處 1*

Mornings roll past, putting shadows

in motion. Darkness caresses each

object; each object caresses light.

The old woman's eyes adjust

 

One of her children, long grown, has left behind a celebratory birth quilt; she spreads it as an altar cloth. In a shallow raku dish she places maple seeds. Moving them from one dish to another, she offers them as "incense;" a mouse accepts the offering. Shadows of ash and cottonwood chase one another as yet another day, amazingly, for no reason she can discern, brightens.

Absolute truth is emptiness of all dharmas,
Hence there is no reason to be obsessed with things.

-- Collected Sayings of Preceptor Baegun (1299–1375) tr. Whitfield and Park

 

* 无处 Trad. 無處 wú chù = "Nowhere"

In Place 48

 

I've built a fiberglass-roofed hut
where there's nothing to take away.

After eating,
I conk out.

When the hut was completed,
it was a children's playhouse.

It had long been abandoned —
covered by blackberries.

Sometimes I live at the hut,
trying out Nagarjuna.

No need to go shopping.
No movies, no popcorn.

Though the hut is nine feet square,
Nowhere is there a place not here.

Within, an old nun
gawks out the window.

With her "instinctive knowing what to do"
she trusts being/time.

The neighbors can't help wondering —
what's going on in there?

For now, the old crone is present,
losing track of Meaning.

Knowing she does not know up or down,
she looks straight ahead.

A wide window below green cottonwoods--
five star hotels can't compare with it.

Just nestling in her zero-g chair
all things are settled.

Thus, this mountain nun
doesn't squint at circumstances.

Living here she no longer
hankers for escape.

Who would proudly arrange place settings,
trying to lure guests?

Doing as a Buddha does
cannot not be what a Buddha is.

Thusness can't be
looked toward or away from.

Meet the lineages and spiritual friends,
absorb their guidance.

Salvage fence boards to build a hut
and don't give up.

When your begging bowl breaks,
which it will, relax into your day.

Open your face
and walk, de-stressed.

Thousands of teachers
babble, but the message isn't garbled.

If you want to benefit
from dwelling in your hut,

Don't expect to be polishing that begging bowl
forever.

 

 

In Place 47

 47

In late summer this work began;
in another summer she brings pears
and apples to sit and pare
while watching the sun go down





It could be objected that the old woman having a retirement income is hypocritical in presenting the half-hermit life as if it were a thing. Her response is that she's suspended by her obligations between the way of a householder and the way of a hermit. Yet there can be value in reflection wherever one is.

Do not look back on the past, nor anticipate the future, but take whatever is brought forth by the present and endeavor to dispose of it as best you can.
—Hung Ying Ming, Discourses on Vegetable Roots (tr. Isobe)

In Place 46

 46

In spring, dandelion and nettle tea,
in summer, mint and blackberry tea,
in fall, chicory and mulberry tea,
in winter, fir needle and dried vegetable tea

She sees that around her, with the cultivation of a little knowledge, the earth is inclined toward generosity. She reciprocates by treading lightly -- has gardened without chemicals for fifty years, and, to the extent possible for her, used hand tools. She knows she has not been as faithful to these principles as she could have, and that this has not dented the world's problems, but when she goes from garden to zazen, seldom feels that nagging sense of something left unaddressed. It is in the present moment, and only there, that there can be this simplicity.

Sacred refers to that which helps take us (not only human beings) out of our little selves into the whole mountains-and-rivers mandala universe.
--Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild 94

In Place 45

45

Food and drink, free for the labor,
are the proper business
of humans; she strives to make
gratitude her main possession

She grows more vegetables than she needs and puts herself in a position to give some away, thus paying her debt of gratitude.

The Buddhist path itself is understood as something that brings gratitude and joy.
-- Paula Arai, Women Living Zen 151

In Place 44

 44

Plant vegetables; this provides
exercise and sharpens observation
as well as making food and tea
available to you and others





We cultivate ourselves indoors and we cultivate ourselves outdoors, hoe in hand.

A couple of beds inside the fence, of kale, chard and potatoes mostly, keep the old woman busy in her tiny kitchen. As she waters the garden, small birds dart through the spray to catch a drop.

We empty our minds in the hall for creating buddhas, where some naturally open their flower of awakening in this monastic garden in the hills.
-- Hongzhi, quoted by Dogen in Eihei Koroku, 250 (tr. Leighton and Okamura)

In Place 43

 43

Inspired by her stairs,
the old woman undertakes
to clear more stream bed;
instant rock garden





Between the stones she has tucked comfrey, mint, and mosses. In drought, she waters the stones, hopefully keeping the “garden” alive till winter.

Plans and events seldom agree
Who can step back doesn't worry
We blossom and fade like flowers
We gather and part like clouds
—Shiwu (Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine)

In Place 42

42

In summer she, grunting, hauls
large stones from the dry wash
up to the hut to make steps
for those who keep to a path

Back by the stone bridge, mind returns.
Where now the things that troubled me?
— Han Shan (tr. Red Pine)

 

In Place 41

 41

Year round, here, she can make
yard tea; always something green:
fir needles, blackberry leaves, nettles --
easier in high summer





Hiding from the westering sun, she hangs shades from the eaves.

Yunyan was boiling some tea. Daowu asked who he was making it for. Yunyan answered, "nobody special."
-- Soto Zen Ancestors in China, Mitchell, 72.

In Place 40

40

Horses and bison tread
past her south window at dawn;
she pulls back the east shade.
how many days without sun?





The few mornings the old woman has awakened at the hut instead of the house have been notable for a certain quiet sublimity, especially in winter, with the small creek roaring nearby. One could say that in the exurbs one can experience something of what Chinese hermits go to remote mountains for, but then, one should be able to practice anywhere without making distinctions, yes?

By blue waters, in green hills are places to stroll quietly; near valleys, under trees are places for clearing the mind. Beholding impermanence, do not ignore it, for it encourages the mind to search the Way.
-- Keizan, "Instructions on How to Do Pure Meditation" (tr. Nearman)

In Place 39

39

She has worn a path
deep enough to feel her way
with feet on glassed grasses:
ice on gate awakens her





In frost, the path is reliable, but in rain, its heavy clay slickens. She carries small flat stones, and when her foot slides, she drops one in that spot and tamps it in with her heel: slowly a cobblestone way is established.


All night, a gentle rain fills the darkness outside
My long years of hard travel are over at last
-- Ryokan in Great Fool: Zen Master Ryōkan: Poems, Letters, and Other Writings 140 (Abé and Haskell, tr.)
 

In Place 38

38

She stays some nights, by
lamplight studying, or in
bed, watching the moon
stray among bare branches






I don't let white clouds leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far as my closed gate
Han-shan Te-ch'ing in The Clouds Should Know Me By Now 120 (tr. Red Pine)

 

In Place 37

 37

Bison have moved south
across the snow to accept
farmers' delivered hay;
no geese fly, no starlings chat





The hut’s large windows permit close observation of the life cycles of one’s plant and animal neighbors. One comes to realize there is no separation.

If we think, “I am here and the mountain is over there,” that is a dualistic way of observing things.
--Shunryu Suzuki, Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness 28.

In Place 36

36

Atop her desk, "one who listens
to the cries of the world" rests
in emptiness, yet serves to salve
inner and outer wounds





A friend donated a statuette of Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin (Jp. Kannon), the bodhisattva who “hears the cries of the world.” It’s evidently a mass market copy of the great (2m height) Song Dynasty Guanyin currently on display in the National Museum of China, Beijing. The pose is Royal Ease, and Guanyin appears to be teaching while holding a lotus-flower wish-fulfillment jewel. Above the statuette on the wall there is a framed copy of the Heart Sutra; to the left there is a framed enso or empty circle from one of the series of the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (Ox and Ox-Herd Both Gone Out of Sight)." To the right is a framed photograph of the memorial statue of Mugai Nyodai (1223-1298), first abbess in Japanese Zen, who is said to have burned her face with a hot iron in order to be accepted to live and study among male monks.

With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear.
-- Avalokiteshvara in the Heart Sutra.

In Place 35

 35

Sun slants across the room
differently each day; sometimes her
young friend (who points to the earth) shines
but sometimes darkness holds him





Sun strikes the young man on the altar mostly in winter. At the height of summer he reposes in shade. There is no hindrance; light and its absence require each other to make one universe.

In darkest night it is perfectly clear; in the light of dawn it is hidden.
It is a standard for all things; its use removes all suffering.
Although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words.
Like facing a precious mirror; form and reflection behold each other.
-- Dongshan, "Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi" in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (1924-33) reprinted in Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field, 2000, tr. Leighton and Yi Wu

In Place 34

 34

the waterfall that runs in winter
runs, fills the hut with white noise;
to air dark corners, old woman
slides her window open





The waterfall’s music begins usually in late October or early November and in late May or early June it stops; though in 1993 it ran all year.

So many years spent idly contemplating
The immense white layer on the mountains;
This winter, all of a sudden,
I see it for the first time as a snow-mountain.
-- Dogen (tr. Stephen Heine)

In Place 33

33

Snow seals heat within;
she steams white rice,
tea and veg to have with
scenes of falling white






The snow helps dampen road noise from nearby civilization. She sits, then gets up to muck about. Before long, thoughts creep in that leave her feeling defeated. "If in sitting one finds no distinctions, where do all these distinctions come from to crowd in as soon as I rise to pour tea?"

Snow besieges my plank door I crowd the stove at night
although this form exists it seems as if it doesn't
I have no idea where the months have gone
every time I turn around another year on earth is over
-- Han-Shan Te-Ching (tr. Red Pine)

In Place 32

 32

In a snow year, break trail
to brew tea and read,
or make nine bows as incense
drifts toward drafty walls






A hat, gloves and coat make a fine robe for morning service.

One who is drinking water knows well enough if it is cold or warm.
-- Huang Po (after Blofeld, tr.)

In Place 31

 31

She loves to hear rain
on leaves, on grass and stones;
when rain falls on desk and books
she does roof work






The hut, built from scraps, is approaching the end of its third decade and maintenance is on the increase. She muses that rain and work are both excellent ways to observe the universal as the particular and vice versa.

Not engaging in extensive deliberation,
When sowing the fields you must work diligently.
-- Dogen, Eihei Koroku 445 (tr. Leighton and Okamura)

In Place 30

30

Everything within reach,
including the broom:
spring cleaning is quickly done
in a room eight by ten






"Allow no dust to cling." Plenty of dust remains after nearsighted Old Woman sweeps.

When the old woman wants to read a book, she extends her arm; when she wants tea, she extends her arm. Pretentiousness? Contrivance? Of course! But the genuine is never absent; it's up to her to notice.

Sweeping away mist and clouds, the purity of the universe is revealed, As, together with the wooden man, we all enjoy a spring of great peace.
-- Zukui Jifu in Eminent Nuns, 144 (Beata Grant)

 

In Place 29

 29

From the end of this pasture
she looks back: if there were
suddenly no hut, there would still be
grass, trees, stones and stream





Pasture with dog, late May.

Everything here is exactly as it is.


The body and mind of the Buddha way is grass, trees, tiles and pebbles, as well as wind, rain, water and fire.
— Dogen (tr. Tanahashi)

In Place 28

28

The young-old monk, watcher
over infants and mad crones,
gets a late spring offering —
handful of vinca blossoms





Jizo once greeted visitors to the homestead, but lost his head more than once as water hoses were hauled around the garden. In his new location at the hut he is a hermit, but has never left off his practice. The stone behind him was raised from the dry creek bed the preceding summer.

Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines --
jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it.
-- Shitou, "Song of the Grass-Roof Hut" in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (1924-33) reprinted in Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field, 2000, tr. Leighton and Yi Wu

 

In Place 27

 27

Winds from the river by day
winds from mountains at night
sing to cottonwood branches:
cottonwood branches clack back






Though the old woman has a cot in the hut and naps there often, she has seldom slept in it overnight. But she does lie long abed in the afternoons, attending the rustling leaves or rattling twigs.


The dharma does not rise up alone—it can’t emerge without reliance on the world. If I take up the challenge of speaking I must surely borrow the light and the dark, the form and the emptiness of the mountains and hills and the great earth, the call of the magpies and the cries of the crows. The water flows and the flowers blossom, brilliantly preaching without ceasing. In this way there is no restraint.
— Ziyong Chengru in The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, Caplow and Moon, 241

In Place 26

26

Dark of the year, her altar lacks
flowers: a moss covered oak branch
makes do; in spring
she finds a spray of quince





Flowering quince goes well with the red altar cloth and bowls, so she enjoys the three weeks or so that the blossoms may be available. Still, every offering is quite right.

One day Daowu and Yunyan were out walking with Yaoshan, who pointed at two trees with his finger. One was healthy and the other was withered up. He asked Daowu, "Which is better, the withered tree or the healthy tree?" Daowu answered, "The healthy one is better." Yaoshan said, "So everything around it becomes bright and colorful." Then he asked Yunyan the same question. Yunyan said, "The withered tree is better." Yaoshan said, "So everything around it looks gray and withered up." An attendant named Gao appeared suddenly. Yaoshan asked him the same question. Gao said, "The withered one is withered and the healthy one is healthy." Yaoshan turned to Daowu and Yunyan and said, "You were both wrong."
-- Soto Zen Ancestors in China, James Mitchell, 62

 

In Place 25

 25

Through the reed shade,
watch leaves fall in autumn,
branches rattle in winter, foliage
tremble in spring or droop in summer





This is part of her tea "ritual" in all seasons.

In the spring, cherry blossoms.
In the summer the cuckoo.
In autumn the moon.
In winter the snow, clear, cold.
— Dogen (after Tanahashi)

In Place 24

 24

Ritual averse, yet she has such:
brewing tea of blackberry leaves,
chard, kale, squash leaves, maple blooms;
pour, settle, sip, sit

 

 

"Yard tea" steeping.  Such tisanes are best dried and crumbled and then sealed away from air, 'tis true, but simply gathering the herbs and foliage and steeping them fresh works well enough for the purpose.

The Way does not have any particular form that can be cultivated, the Dharma does not have any particular form that can be validated. Just unrestricted no-recollection and no-thought, at all times everything is the Way.

— Wuzhu, Lidai fabao ji in The Teachings of Master Wuzhu 141 (Adamek)

In Place 23

23

Spring advances, sun returns;
grey skies give way
to flocks of round clouds;
worms, birds and mice are busy

 

 

View toward East Gate, in late May.

A mother mouse tunneled into the old woman’s mattress to give birth. Mrs. Mouse and her brood died one spring day as the old woman lay down for a nap. The old woman mourned more than she would have expected.

Were it not for the suffering of sentient beings, no need for compassion would arise.
-- John Daido Loori in The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans xxxii)

In Place 22

 22

A quiet fellow waits out
morning service, anxious
for his daily walk along
green country ways, reading sign







Shown here at age seventeen, this cairn terrier is mostly blind and deaf, but can find warm sunny spots and lives by scent. The old woman thinks of their walks as a kind of kinhin, or walking meditation.

On either side of the footpath rises a row of green pines.
Over the valley, the scent of a wild plum is wafted to me.
Each visit to this place yields me a fresh spiritual gain.
-- Ryokan (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa, The Zen Poems of Ryokan 57)

In Place 21

21

The carpet comes in handy
for nine bows; with hands
uplifted, the old woman pauses,
thoughtlessly thoughtful of all






These bows are supposed to be prostrations from standing, but the old woman’s back and legs are beginning to fail her, so she now uses the railing of the cot as a grab bar to get to her knees and does her bows from there. This is sometimes accompanied by the grunts and groans of the elderly.

...we should know why we do prostrations. We do not do them to endear ourselves to somebody else. We do not do them for the Buddha. Such concepts are completely wrong. The Buddha is not a god of this world. We bow down to purify all situations from the past where we did not respect others.
-- Lama Gendyn Rinpoche

 

In Place 20

20

Mornings she repeats ancient texts
abjuring illusion, anger, fear;
speaks the names of
friends and others, ill or passed





Morning service at "Gogo-an" consists of Robe Chant, zazen, Heart Sutra, nine bows, Dedications (reading of the current Memorial List, reading of the current Well-Being List), Bodhisattva Vows, Refuges, six days a week. One can see from all the capitalization that there is certainly some risk of pietism, which she guards against warily. Heart Sutra is supposed to be chanted, but she’s not good at this and just reads it aloud.

Beings are numberless; I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha’s way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

-- Bodhisattva Vows

In Place 19

 19

Through her south window
she may watch the neighbors' herd
of bison; they gaze in as well
she counts them friends






The bison, she’s told, are really "beefalo." They are very impressive. The obvious equality of these beings with the old woman might be a clue to her question's answer.

If you are not caught up in the rules and ranks, there is no seeking.
-- Chao-Chou in Loori, The Heart of Being 51-52.

In Place 18

18

For study of old books,
soft light of rainy days
is good; the volcanic young man
helps with her homework





The hut is not off-grid; this is thanks to a long heavy-duty drop cord. The old woman has her steamer, tea maker, small heater, and a lamp. Much of her study consists in seeking out connections between talk of "enlightenment" and talk of the "precepts." For years her question has been: what does understanding reality necessarily have to do with compassion?

Bud­dhas don't keep precepts. And buddhas don't break precepts.
-- attr. Bodhidharma (tr. Red Pine)

 

In Place 17

17

The old woman has found
a young friend, molded from ashes
gathered from the slopes of a volcano;
he points to the earth, his witness






This Buddha statue is of the historic Shakyamuni (Gautama Buddha) and recalls the occasion of his great enlightenment. Pressed by Mara, the king of the delusion demons, to prove his enlightenment, he points to the earth and calls it to witness. Acquired from a merchant somewhere, somewhen, she found his rough vagueness of appearance answered to her own vagueness of aspiration and effort, while his uncompromising posture and gesture provided her with a "way in."

Q: What is the Way and how must it be followed?
A: What sort of THING do you suppose the Way to be, that you should wish to FOLLOW it?
-- Zen Teaching of Huang-Po 52 (tr. Blofeld)

 

In Place 16

 Preparing for a lack of shade,
the old woman dabs white paint
at the roof and rough-sawn walls
old wire fence makes an enclosure

Good paint is available at low prices (in five gallon cans) from the local recycler. The old woman has welded-wire fencing and tee posts left over from decades of farm projects. To build a little compound for the hut and its “raised” beds, she wraps fencing around a corner of the pasture. She gives the wire fencing a “rustic” look by inserting hazel prunings in the fencing vertically to a height above six feet. This is more practical than it looks, as it reduces the likelihood of the vegetables being grazed by deer. They are lovely to watch, but perhaps less so when partaking of one's kale.

Sitting, I meditate on emptiness
as fresh breezes fill the temple.
Words are inherently empty and yet
still I am fond of brush and ink.
My mind like ashes after the fire and yet
still I am tied to the world.
-- Miaohui (Grant, Daughters of Emptiness 121)

In Place 15

15

Rain comes, fogs settle in;
her ceiling does drip a little;
path grows muddy; to keep her footing
she throws flat stones in low spots

 

In summer she gathers stones — basalt, mostly — from the dry  creek bed and stores them for winter projects.

With the shade tree gone, the roof has been painted white; walls will be painted soon. It won't be as attractive as when the building was red, but Gogo-an would be too hot in the summer without its tree.

The fence is to keep deer (or potentially sheep) out of the small garden.

I always wanted to go to East Cliff,
more years than I can remember, until today
I just grabbed a vine and started up.
Halfway up wind and a heavy mist closed in,
and the narrow path tugged at my shirt:
it was hard to get on. The slickery
mud under the moss on the rocks
gave way, and I couldn’t keep going.
So here I stay, under this cinnamon tree,
white clouds for my pillow,
I’ll just take a nap.
— Han Shan (Cold Mountain, tr. Seaton )

 

In Place 14

14

Half householder still, she lives here
part time, and so makes tea and rice
as needed, washing dishes outdoors.
Beneath the altar: pantry

 

In use for more than a decade, her old steamer can cook many things, but is most in demand for rice (pre-seasoned with home-grown dried herbs, kept in a Mason jar underneath the altar) and vegetables (mostly beets, potatoes, kale, chard and zucchini, in season). The little coffeemaker is used to make what the old woman calls “yard” tea — seasonally available forage such as (deep breath) chicory, dandelions, nipplewort, narrow leaf plantain, crimson clover, deadnettle, cat’s ears, blackberry leaves, fir or spruce needles, money plant, Bigleaf maple flowers, wild lettuce, rosemary, dill, sage, and crop foliage such as kale, chard, beet greens, squash blossoms and leaves, pea and bean foliage, corn silk, and the like. There are two bowls that also serve as cups, a few utensils, a knife, and a cutting board. Water is brought from the homestead well in a half gallon bottle.

Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses; do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup. Where there is no discrimination, how can there be distaste?
— Dogen (tr. Tanahashi)