gods

It's true: I have a hole in my shoe.
The devious smile of happiness

I blow on tedious glances.

Under the city, I see nothing.

Now!

Isn't that human? The "now" is as good as anything.

SUBPERSONALITIES

" We run the span in psychology concerning the Ego, going to James Hillman who does not ascribe to the theory that the ego is one entity but it is composed of 12."

A rat cornered

Να μην ξεπουληθώ
μπροστά στα μάτια μου,

φορώντας τα ίδια ρούχα·

να μην ξεπουληθώ στις ίδιες διαδρομές.

Δεν έχω φλόγα, έχω εμφάνιση.

Με δανεισμένο λεξιλόγιο

χρωματίζω

το ατέλειωτο γκρίζο που με ισοπεδώνει

για να έχω κάτι να πουλήσω,

να μην ξεπουληθώ.                                                                                   

Allright, but what does the word 'Zen' mean?

The absence of any record of Dhyana School in Indian Buddhist literature, or of Bodhidharma in connection with it, is perhaps due to the fact that there was never any Dhyana or Zen School even in China until some two hundred years after Bodhidharma's time. On the other hand, there would have been an almost universal practice of dhyana - that is, or ts'o ch'an (Japanese, za-zen)  or sitting meditation - among Buddhist monks, and the special instructors who supervised this practice were called dhyana masters, no matter what their school or sect ... 

Zen became a distinct school only as it promulgated a view of dhyana which differed sharply from the generally accepted practice.

(The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts, Vintage Spiritual Classics)

To paraphrase 'Stereo Lab'

The song goes: 'Some see the Flesh before they see the Bones, some see the Bones before they see the Flesh". It is so. But what is the Flesh and what are the Bones? The Zen Flesh is "The Gateless Gate" or "Mumonkan" and the Zen Bones are the 10 Bulls (or Ox in other books). Koans or bulls? But, I think, I have written something about it before ...

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO

"Orthodoxy in Greece is pretty rigid, isn't it?"

Taizan Maezumi Roshi, circa 1988

Μανιφέστο

Δεν έχω τις απαραίτητες Αρχές;

Δεν έχω το Μανιφέστο;

Θα αρχίσω. λοιπόν, δική μου Θρησκεία!

The Anti-Buddha

"I never said the pain of training is easy but it's good, otherwise you could wait another ten years to remain a kind of dependent or subservient figure."

Michael Hughes on Zen Buddhism "in limbo"

GATE ENTERED

Four and fifty years

I've hung the sky with stars.

Now I leap through-

What shattering!

                              -Dogen

(Zen Poems of China and Japan, Grove Press) 

Το λουλούδι της ανίας

 Το λουλούδι της ανίας 

ας

 φυτρώσει

κι

ας

 τυλιχτεί

μέσα

 στούς πνεύμονες

 της νύχτας.

                                   Από την τηλεόραση                                      χαζό

ας

 ακτινοβολεί

 τον ήχο

   της καρδιάς μου

να

 γεννηθώ

    αναπνοή.  

JOY AND JOE JONES

"Before you get to the joy that nothing around you can destroy or threaten, what do you have to do? You probably have to lose everything. 'Losing' just means the willingness to relinquish. It's simple: I either cling; it doesn't happen until I have this, until I have that and I say, good luck! You can carry that up until your nineties and it comes out nowhere until your next reincarnation and the one after that and the one after that. I have to clarify, what joy? Which joy? Isn't that called ananda?"

Michael Hughes on how "us, normal people" can find true happiness.

SOUL

"Many people come to my reading to see how they are doing in the love affairs. But what I mostly want to know is how they relate to theit souls: If they are on schedule, in other words."

Communist

Περιμένοντας την τελική  υπογραφή,

την τελική αοριστία ενός πλήθους της σιωπής

που τώρα πια δεν καταλαβαίνει 

γιατί τα γράμματα δεν φτιάχνουν λέξεις.

The trap

" 'Everybody come under my tent because I have the true teaching': nowadays it works for many people, but what a trap!"

Michael Hughes on 'true metaphysicians'.

ΠΑΝΤΟΥ ΕΝΤΟΣ

Κάνω μιά σιωπή που βιάζεται να πει κάτι με γράμματα.

Φτιάχνω σιωπή γιατί με γράμματα δεν γίνονται λέξεις.

Η όμορφη αυτή σιωπή δεν έχει τον ειρμό του χρήσιμου,

είναι όμως μιά ύπαρξη με κάτι προσδοκώμενο.

Δεν έχει αξία, έχει όμως όγκο

την απλώνω και την πετώ προς τα έξω·

αρκεί που είναι μεγάλη κι ανέπαφη και συνεπής

κι ούτε εδώ πάει, ούτε εκεί,

αλλά παντού εντός.

The Rosegarden five

Why has Bodhidharma left for the East?

Hilda, the numerologist of yesteryear

"You know, the number 'four' is full of money and ambition. It isn't who you are."

THE SHADOW

The Apocalypse as to the Brotherhood of St. John.