In Place 12

 12

A friend donates chairs; with these,
two to four may sit thinking no thoughts
or thinking of thinking no thoughts
while gazing at knotty fir

Four folding chairs came with someone’s spare card table.  It’s encouraging how many useful things one can tuck into an eight by ten shed and not feel that it is cluttered.

The first thing is to learn how to quiet the mind, relax the mind, and bring the awareness to the front so that we are conscious of what we're doing when we're doing it without all the commentary.
-- Tenzin Palmo

In Place 11

11

By her door she sets a young friend,
monkish, said to represent
one who vowed to watch over
mad old wet hens and others




 

This is Kshitigarbha, called in Japanese Jizo. He is said to take an interest in those who obviously need watching over, such as old fools. Does he? Maybe so:

...ontologically everything is interdependent and empty of independent existence. Dōgen pushes this logic to assert that “All beings are Buddhanature.” This deliberate reconfiguration of the Nirvana Sūtra teaching that “All sentient beings have Buddha-nature” highlights Dōgen’s more  thoroughgoing nondualistic understanding, for Dōgen’s articulation does not distinguish between sentient and nonsentient beings nor does it allow for some beings to have Buddha-nature and others not. Buddha-nature is not an object one can have, in the same way one cannot have a dog or a self, for everything is empty of independent existence.

Paula Arai, "The Zen of Rags" -- in which she muses on cleaning rags as Buddhas ...

In Place 10

10

Books, lamp, her mother's desk,
a small cot from which, lying down,
she may observe trilling leaves
of spring and fall cottonwoods

As of 2018, most of the books are studies of women in Buddhism and some books by Eihei Dogen, Hongzhi, Shunryu Suzuki, Kosho Uchiyama, Ryokan, Red Pine, Shiwu (Stonehouse) and Han Shan (Cold Mountain), along with several collections of Chinese poetry translated by Kenneth Rexroth. The collection changes as the old woman's studies change. From the cot there is an especially intriguing view of young cottonwood and ash trees just across the small creek.

In my hut, I listen to the evening rain
and stretch my legs without a care in the world.
-- Ryokan (tr. Abé and Haskel)
 

In Place 9

 9

She lays carpeting; an old brass bowl
will teach by singing— it tells her
she may stop thinking, or may
even stop stopping thinking

In 2013 she experienced a crisis of gloom over perceived diminishing likelihood that most species, including humankind, could survive the observed exponential increase in environmental degradation. A friend advised her to take up some form of meditation. She joined a Soto Zen Buddhist sangha. The hut was now repurposed as a zendo (meditation hall) of sorts. “Stop thinking, or even stop stopping thinking” is a reference to Eihei Dogen’s "Fukanzazengi."

Think of not thinking, ‘Not thinking —what kind of thinking is that?’ Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.
— Dogen (tr. Tanahashi)

In Place 8

 8

Shade tree, dying, leans on hut;
old woman, sad, makes cuts
then cables tree uphill to make
firewood she had not needed





The tree began an imperceptibly slow but undeniable lean to the east, downhill, a path that would take it through the hut. Two feet thick and fifty feet tall, it presented a problem for the old woman. She considered whether to give up the hut, then elected to draw the tree uphill with wire rope and pulleys. Cutting the tree while it was under pressure from the cable presented its own set of difficulties, as the tree could split and crash backward into the building. By cutting most of the way through the stump and then cranking and resetting the tension many times, she eventually brought the tree within reach of a pole saw. Daylight where shade had been -- she'd foolishly counted on that shade for the hot summers.

Across the valley
I hear the sounds of trees being felled
-- Ryokan (tr. Abé and Haskel)

In Place 7

 7

Snips rusty fence wire
to set a gate; a tiny parkland in
deep brush -- this dry wash
silent in summer; in winter roaring

The gate provides an entryway from the poultry pasture, allowing access to the hut should anything happen to the main bridge, which crosses the creek elsewhere, nearer the homestead. Three bridges have been washed away by floods in times past. It is a very dynamic landscape.

Though the river's current never fails, the water passing, moment by moment, is never the same. Where the current pools, bubbles form on the surface, bursting and disappearing as others rise to replace them, none lasting long. In this world, people and their dwelling places are like that, always changing.
-- Chomei, Hojoki

In Place 6

 6

She's thrown a heavy old fir beam
from bank to bank, replacing a bridge
long gone, and cut new trail right
through old undergrowth: back door




An intimidating thicket of Himalaya berry canes of course grew up beneath the cottonwoods along the dry wash (a respectable creek in rainy season) but with time and a pair of secateurs such things can be pushed back, if a path is wanted.

If you don’t understand the way right before you,
how will you know the path as you walk?
-- Shitou (tr. Soto-Shu Liturgy Conference)

In Place 5

 5

She has cleaned up this site;
weeping, she finds toys
her children had mislaid among thorns
and stones, moss-covered now

Here in 2013 the impending demise of the fir tree has become quite evident. It had shaded the hut as a playhouse and a writer's cabin, as well as numerous picnics. From this eastern window one can hear a small waterfall in winter, towhees in summer. In the 1990s, children played round this structure and inevitably lost or threw away some toys; plastic lasts a long time but moss will nevertheless hide it for awhile.

...retiring to my hut I accept white hair
but sigh that today and the years gone by
are mindless like the rivers flowing east
-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain, tr. Red Pine)

In Place 4

 4

An impromptu kitchen appears
rice with powdered vegetable leaves
sips tea while watching
rain slant into cottonwoods

The old woman cut down and firewooded five cottonwood trees here in 2009 because hawks were using them to rest in while counting chickens. Some thirty young trees sprouted from the stumps and roots, and are now the "woodland" associated with the hut. Their trembling leaves are teachers. The steamer handles rice, barley, oats, potatoes and leafy vegetables with ease, providing a measure of day-to-day independence from the homestead, which is a couple of hundred feet away.

     Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
     -- Shitou (tr. Leighton and Tanahashi)

In Place 3

 3

Thoughts pursued, thoughts of
thoughts pursued, writer's cramp
alternating with writer's block
one old mouse chases her tail





While writing these books the retired woman began to see the limits of her own vision and to consider how she might, if not actually "escape the circle of discourse," at least resolve some doubts.

All your opinions are still not put to rest. Your mind is still hindered by attachments. Thus, you are as one sitting outside the gate.
-- Keizan, "Instructions on How to Do Pure Meditation" (tr. Nearman)

In Place 2

 2

Retired from public life, she moves in, old
eight books she's written here
not bad books, yet she must admit
she has failed to save the world




"Failing to save the world" in this instance means having attempted, without much impact, to promote to society at large an agrarian subsistence lifestyle as a response to resource depletion and climate change. Those who speak for corporations proved to have the louder voice, and like many others the old woman has been worn down considerably. She is trying a new approach.

To glorify the Way what should people turn to?
To words and deeds that agree
But oceans of greed never fill up
and sprouts of delusion keep growing

—Shiwu (Stonehouse) (after Red Pine, tr.)

In Place 1

1 

Decades ago now, playhouse for her children
too much window glass for their play
by the fence it stands, forlorn, lost;
neighbors' horses seem amused





This image was probably taken about 2010, when the playhouse had been mostly unused for almost two decades. The shade tree, a Douglas fir, is already looking a little stressed, perhaps partly because the playhouse was built so near it when it was a sapling.

     I move my table to read sutras by moonlight
     I pick wildflowers to fill my altar vase
     -- Shiwu (Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine)