A mind enamored of its own disguise cannot see all the imminent Buddhas– the ones stationed everywhere it looks. The Ones everywhere it can’t quite see. (Stop here for a moment and take a look around.) (Do you see?) A mind convinced of its own fabrications cannot imagine that experience itself is an omni-sided doorway– a passage to every form of grace. A passage to every glory, seated in circles. (Don’t worry where, just imagine… that you […]
I’ve done it now. I’ve stepped into It. It’s gotten all over my shoe and It’s made walking a squishy awkward. Also, a certain quantity of the material ended up in dollops on the rug in the front hall, like a band of slugs that woke up and had no idea where they were. Too stunned to move. Just laying there like a constellation of invertebrates collectively embodying a deeper meaning. Like tea leaves. They must […]
A lawn bordered by backlit trees, and a sun pouring forth on the matters of this age. Such consistency in the face of my impromptu madness. The smattering of robins working through the yard understand exactly what the sun is saying. Their curious heads turn in silent clicks from one world to the next. Some have scruffy necks and perform shutter-speed calculations. They all have Open, upturned eyes. Open. I’m catching on. The quality of […]
Sometimes when the door slams and the house wobbles, we forget the stew bubbling happily on the stove. We forget the scent of roasting carrots. We forget the light dancing softly on the candle. Sometimes when the light turns red and two horns joust in reply, we forget the fresh cut flowers on the passenger seat. We forget we were celebrating an abiding love. We forget the other reasons for this plane are moot. Sometimes […]
When asked to explain the self, the Buddha demurred. How would this help? Likewise, a trusted computer will not look too closely at division by zero, not because it is impossible, but because of the hypnotic ramifications. Caught in its beguiling web, the self resists clear understanding. Better to consider the photon. When a filament of refined metallic earth is filled to the brimming point with a humming sweetness, or space itself collapses into an incredible, […]
Until you’ve given yourself to it entirely– until you’ve stepped forward in the silence of your own heart, drenched in commitment, and called your life’s bluff, or taken a sabbatical from what makes sense and spent a few of those precious vacation days sleeping in back of a rusted car that is flying awkwardly in gutted stasis on a litter of cinder blocks strewn along the ground like the crumbs of a passing barrage of scrapped cities, […]
What if we look into the night sky, but can’t understand what it says? This happens all the time, because we sent Meaning away once. All of us. Banished it from our minds. Cut ourselves right in two like cosmic butchers. Each from each. Then each from each again. For our own good, we said. Looked up at the stars. Lost count. Lost our way. Every half blamed the other. We’ve got the right half, we […]
Christ is a friend best made before you try and set things straight in the world, because that’s a tall order usually involving such experiential delicacies as walking through fire, negotiating with fanatics, imbibing poisoned tonics, standing trial before a stadium-sized jury of the bitter and scorned, writing defiant op-eds no one understands, being shoved out of a slow-rolling car, or spraying something minty into your mouth right before doing something reckless as a last […]
The other day, unexpectedly and without provocation, because it made sense in a very incalculable kind of way, and eschewing momentarily all my previously aggregated momentum of character and personality, I responded to a clever advertisement stapled to the picture of a pet mountain goat that by some accounts had gone missing, and by other accounts been found, that was taped to a promotional photograph of a local practitioner of esoteric dietary arts involving seeds […]
Miracles work like this: we stop trying to choose a life from the menu and invite the chef to surprise us our plate arrives twenty minutes later, empty but for a once-folded, scribbled note: where have you been get your ass back here the meringue is on fire Suddenly– we remember… We enter the kitchen to hearty cheers, exploding custards, the incoming flight of a ripe tomato, a glimpse of flames from the open pit rotisserie, […]
Embracing Forever 