Usually, I have an idea of what I am going to say about a book, but this time I am at a loss for words, so I thought that I would just Bleeding Hearts
Usually, I have an idea of what I am going to say about a book, but this time I am at a loss for words, so I thought that I would just sit here and try to write.
I remember when it first came to light that Trump was separating mothers and fathers from their children, and I mentioned it to my Republican friend, not knowing what she would say, but also expecting that because shew as a mother, she would understand my feelings for the children. Instead, she said, “Obama did it, and no one complained then.” I changed the subject, after all I had known her since I was 8 years old. I then began to notice that Republica ns just didn’t care, not even those women who had lost their own children due to deaths at a young age. What happened to some people’s empathy? Did they never have any in the first place? I remember reading in the book “Behave,” that Republican’s bran waves are rule by fear, Democrats by empathy. Is that it, we are wired differently? Partly so, but these Republicans care for their children, they love them. But what a shock it is when you expect a certain kind of response from someone, and they show no feelings. Maybe this is why I am having a hard time writing about this book.
The author, a journalist for NBC, spent time at the border, investigating. He has done an excellent job. The first thing I learned is that Obama did not separate children from their parents, not unless their parents were abusive or criminals. Yet, he deported more Hispanics than Bush or Clinton. There is proof of this, but some people don’t believe in proof. In this, Trump has done his job, the same job that Hitler had done when he was in power, make people not believe in the press. And even this is hard for me to imagine when he will lie one minute and then change his view, which still ends up being a lie. Trump denied separating children from their parents. His supporters said that the photos of children in cages were old photos from the Obama era. What more can I say? To have such people in my life, ones that have no empathy, is not easy. I dropped all but the one. I talk to her very little.
The author does a great job, and it is well wroth the read even if you have followed the news, because this is more of a behind the scenes. Trump’s daughter and wife were against this practice and told him so. He rolled his eyes. It appears that it was public outcry that changed his mind, when I thought that the corst hads ruled against it, so he quit. So, then the author says that he can change his mind again at any time. Now they wait in Mexico to come over, and they are sometimes raped, robbed, and so on. Some he sent back to Guatemala where they are sure to be killed....more
DEWDROPS ON A LOTUS LEAF Zen Poems of Ryokan translated by John Stevens
Ryokan lived from 1758 to 1831. He was a Soto Zen Buddhist and for the last 34 DEWDROPS ON A LOTUS LEAF Zen Poems of Ryokan translated by John Stevens
Ryokan lived from 1758 to 1831. He was a Soto Zen Buddhist and for the last 34 years of his life he lived as a hermit. In my own imagination I think he must have grown tired of Zen life with the and its teachings, just hanging on to what was good. One of the poems that I put here kind of tells me that I am correct. Hint: the word is “babble.”
Of the four Zen poetry books that I just purchased, I was drawn to this one first. I actually have a poem that I copied but have no idea who had written it. I read a poem in this book by him, and the writing seems to be alike.
This is one of the poems that he had written that I liked:
My Cracked Wooden Bowl
This treasure was discovered in a bamboo thicket -- I washed the bowl in a spring and then mended it. After morning meditation, I take my gruel in it; At night, it serves me soup or rice. Cracked, worn, weather-beaten, and misshapen But still of noble stock!
And my favorite:
The Great Way leads nowhere, And it is no place. Affirm it and you miss it by a mile; “This is delusion, that is enlightenment,” is also wide of the mark. You can expound theories of “existence” And “non-existence” Yet even talk of the “Middle Way” can get you sidetracked. I’ll just keep my wonderful experiences to myself. Babble about enlightenment, and your words get torn to shreds.
Compare this to a poem that I found somewhere but whose author I do not know. To me it sounds like Ryokan:
Áll my life too lazy to try and get ahead, I leave everything to the truth of Heaven. In my sack three measures of rice, by the stove one bundle of sticks— why ask who’s got satori, who hasn’t? What would I know about that dust, fame and gain? Rainy nights here in my thatched hut I stick out my two legs any old way I please.
--Ryokan (1758-1831) Soto Zen
Ah, ha. When I read this before I did not see that it was by him. Mystery solved. I share his feelings.
What a beautiful poet by a man who lived a very humble life. Ryokan was an 18th century hermit-monk who came from the village of Izumozaki in Echigo p
What a beautiful poet by a man who lived a very humble life. Ryokan was an 18th century hermit-monk who came from the village of Izumozaki in Echigo province of Japan. While his youth was serene, when he was 18, he succeeded his father as the village headman. This job was filled with many conflicts, something that Ryokan disliked immensely for he hated contention. At some point during this time he reached a spiritual crisis and withdrew into silence. It was then that he decided to become a Buddhist monk and entered Kosho-ji monastery.
Four years later a Zen priest known as Kokusen visited the monastery, and Ryokan decided become his student and so left the monastery with him. A few years later Kokusen died, and so Ryokan left the monastery and went on pilgrimages. After a time he decided to go back to his former monastery but on the way there he found an empty hermitage where he took up residence.
Ryokan often went to a neighboring village where he played with the children, picked flowers, drank sake and visited with friends. He preached though his own actions and not through words. When his health began to fail he went to live with his disciple Kimur Motoemon, and it was there that he met a nun name Teishin, whom he fell in love with and who he wrote about in some of his poems. To her he wrote:
Have you forgotten the way to my hut? Every evening I wait for the sound of your footsteps, But you do not appear."
Here are some various poems that I loved:
"I came to the village to see the peach blossoms but spent the day instead Looking at the flowers along the river bank."
"In my bowl violets and dandelions are mixed Together with the Buddhas of the three worlds."
"Light rain--the mountain forest is wrapped in mist. Slowly the fog changes to clouds and haze. Along the boundless river bank, many crows. I walk to a hill overlooking the valley to sit in zazen."
[image]
Statue of Ryokan at the Ryūsen-ji temple in Nagaoka, Niigata Japan...more
On a quiet evening in my thatch-roofed hut, alone I play a lute with no string. Its melody enters wind and cloud, mingles deeply with a flowing stream, fillsOn a quiet evening in my thatch-roofed hut, alone I play a lute with no string. Its melody enters wind and cloud, mingles deeply with a flowing stream, fills out the dark valley, blows through the vast forest, then disappears. Other than those who hear emptiness, who will capture this rare sound?
When I lived in Berkeley back in the 70s, I used to walk through neighborhoods at night, and I could often hear someone play the fluke from their apartment window. I wanted so much to learn, but I couldn't afford a good flute. I bought a Native American made flute after moving to the Indian Nation in 2006, but after my first lesson, I came down with bronchitis. I gave it up....more
At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey by Claude Anshin Thomas
In the early 2000s I became friends with a very homesick Australian monk who lived at a DaiAt Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey by Claude Anshin Thomas
In the early 2000s I became friends with a very homesick Australian monk who lived at a Dai Dang monastery in CA. He has since gone back home and assured me that his loneliness has ended. He gave my husband this book to read, hoping that it held a message for him because he had served in Vietnam. I was the one to read it; my husband doesn't wish to remember.
The source of this poem is from my living in Berkeley and seeing veterans on the street, even giving them money to buy a bottle of wine, but it also comes from a scene in this book that actually happened to the author.
This book begins with the words:
"Imagine for a moment that you are standing outside in the rain. What do you typically think and feel as rains falls around you?
For me, every time it rains I walk through war. For two rainy seasons I experience very heavy fighting. During the monsoons in Vietnam, the tremendous volume of water leaves everything wet and muddy. Now when it rains, I am still walking through fields of young men screaming and dying. I still see tree lines disintegrating from napalm. I still hear seventeen-year-old boys crying for their mothers, fathers, and girlfriends. Only after re-experiencing all of that can I come to the awareness that right now, it's just raining."
The first few chapters of this book were very heavy with scenes of war. Taking a scene from out of the book where a baby was left lying and crying in the road, where Claude AnShin Thomas wrote, "...one of them reached out and picked up the baby, and it blew up," I wrote a poem in remembrance:
If you have never been to war, or even if you have, this book is a blessing, a story of a man's survival and how he found peace. Perhaps he didn't find peace completely by becoming a monk in Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery, a monastery where he didn't stay long, but he was well on his way by doing so. We all have to find peace in our own ways, if we ever can.
Today, I think of the refuges that are leaving their own war torn country, the fears, the hunger, and the cold that they face, and I wonder if they will find peace in another land?
p.s. Claude AnShin Thomas is now a monk in Budapest and can be found on facebook. This poem I wrote is for him.
LIVING IN BERKELEY BACK IN NAM
I saw you standing in front of the market on Telegraph Avenue asking for spare change.
With fear seeping through the shadows of your hallowed eyes, you let me know that you were back in Nam, where you watched your buddy holding a Vietnamese baby in his protecting arms, blow up before those very eyes that I am staring into now.
In one breath you told me that it wasn’t real, that it never really happened; in the next breath you asked me “Why?” And I had no answer other than to offer you a few coins. And you walked into that store to buy yourself another bottle of wine.
This was a very nice book of Zen poems although it didn't meet my expectations after reading his wonderful book, "Flowers of the Moment." Ko Un was b This was a very nice book of Zen poems although it didn't meet my expectations after reading his wonderful book, "Flowers of the Moment." Ko Un was born in South Korea and was one of the front runners for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was traumatized by the lost of many of his family and friends in the Korean War. He became a a Zen monk soon after, and after his master left the monastery to get married, he tried to commit suicide. After being a monk for a decade, he returned to secular life. In 1970 he found a newspaper on the floor of a tavern and read a story of a laborer's self-immolation. He thought, "Why did this young man have to die, while I am still alive?" With those thoughts he pulled himself out of his depression which changed forever. He became a political activist during the 70s and 80s, protesting Korea military dictatorship.
Walking Down a Mountain
Looking back Hey! There's no trace of the mountain I've just come down Where am I? The autumn breeze tosses and turns lifeless like a cast-off snakeskin.
Deep Feelings
Waiting decades for one snowflake my body glowerd like charcoal ten went out.
with it, a sound of cicadas singing was there, then wasn't.
Words I Like
I'd rather sink to the bottom of the sea til the end of time than seek liberation from a lot of sages.
Great! I've got some wine in my glass and this saying of Master Stonehead's too.
Peace is every step that you make when you take your brother's hand and give him a plate of food or a handful of clothing
And the peace is there when you sPeace is every step that you make when you take your brother's hand and give him a plate of food or a handful of clothing
And the peace is there when you shelter him from the storm whether it is in his heart or on the land
Peace is every step when you breathe in and when you breathe out not thinking of your anger only of solutions.
And when you shelter yourself from the storm you shelter all by giving them a way to continue on.
Many years have passed since I was at Deer Park Monastery. The first time I went I just thought of going, for it was a leaving time for me as well as a beginning.
I sat in the meditation room waiting for a dharma talk to begin when Thich Nhat Hanh walked into the room. He walked in peacefulness, and when he talked it is was only of kindness.
I never saw him again for I only went several more times to his monastery, and I never knew when he would be back in town. Only his disciples knew.
I loved many of the Buddhist teachings, but I had a few of my own beliefs that I could never relinquish, not that I was asked . Some are in the poem here; others are in my heart....more
I keep Thich Naht Hanh's books in my book case but anymore I do not read them.
I think of him often, ever since he had a stroke. He made itBeing Peace
I keep Thich Naht Hanh's books in my book case but anymore I do not read them.
I think of him often, ever since he had a stroke. He made it though, but I can't find out how he is. As far as I know he is still alive and still a very wise but old man.
Some days when I walk in the woods I try to breathe in peace and breathe it out again, but it has been so many years that now I think more about what people are going through in the world and the changes that are taking place in this earth, and I am too saddened to think of peace.
Yesterday, when I walked through the woods the leaves were falling. For the first time that I could ever remember I actually heard them fall. They fell like paper rain on the forest floor. Maybe Mother Earth had heard it too. I just know though, that she weeps too much these days and probably doesn't hear anything anymore. Maybe like me, she is only hearing her own pain.
And I just wish that I could breathe in peace and breathe out peace again. written by Jessica Slade, 2017...more
Siddhartha was a seeker, but at one time he was into materialism, hedonistic living. Perhaps, that too, was seeking. Then he heard about enlightenmentSiddhartha was a seeker, but at one time he was into materialism, hedonistic living. Perhaps, that too, was seeking. Then he heard about enlightenment and wanted it, so he believed that becoming a Buddhist was the way.
I was once a seeker. I was first a Christian, then an atheist, next a Buddhist, a Neo-Hindu, a Unitarian Universalist, and now I just have a few beliefs, mostly Native American.
I liked the ending of Siddharta's life best, where he was a ferryman. It felt like he, too, gave up his search to find meaning in life and just lived. Some say he became enlightened on that river, that he became one with nature. If so, that had to have been a great experience. But I feel that no one has the real answer to the questions: What is enlightenment? What is the meaning of life? Who am I?
"In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul." ``Siddartha
When I walked away from all religions, I sat down one day and contemplated what it was that I believed, and I came to the conclusion that all that mattered in life was caring for others and for the earth but mostly, just do no harm.
None of the above is easy, but it is easier than seeking answers to big questions and dealing with organizations that actually try to take away your freedom of thinking.
"Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Truth, being limitless, unconditional, unapproachable by any path whatsoever , cannot be organized; nor should any organization be forced to lead or to coerce people along any particular path." ~~J. Krishnamurti...more
I read this book 30 years ago. I believed then that his practice of Buddhism was hedonistic. I still believe the same, having read it again.Do No Harm
I read this book 30 years ago. I believed then that his practice of Buddhism was hedonistic. I still believe the same, having read it again.
Kerouac and his new friend Jaffy enjoyed some of the Buddha’s teachings, all but the precepts, which I have been told, by my own Buddhist teacher, to be necessary to follow if you want to reach enlightenment. I no longer believe in enlightenment or even karma or heavens and hells. I only believe in the precepts which come down to this: Do no harm. Perhaps, this is because of all the religions that I had been in, even the New Age teachings, i.e. that of claiming that they do not believe in religion but in spirituality, cause harm. It is just the nature of man to harm, even in the name of religion.
Kerouac loved the flowery part of Buddhism, and its abstract philosophy. I now only like the flowery Zen poetry. That is all I am left with after years in Buddhism, having never given up my believe in a Creator or a soul, but hanging onto no beliefs about either.
When I left Buddhism, I found Han Shan and other Zen poems, and I found some Native American teachings that I love. They are very simple.
And, at least for me, it was nice to realize, that is, after reading “Big Sur,” that Kerouac had once enjoyed his life, and I hope that after his breakdown he had enjoyed it again....more
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