Above the Fog
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warm valley —
countless geese
seeking refuge
moonrise —
the dark night of a soul
lifts
Biting off
more than I
can chew —
a broken wisdom tooth.
Only the idea of self remains
Floating on a sea of cells;
Only heartbeats short of eternity
In breath after breath we dwell.
Daily rain —
from the deep well
this glass of
water.
Time is one apricot blossom.
Space, a bee.
The Universe, honey.
And, the Goddess of Spring?
chanting canyon streams
Opening bell
echoes from the canyon walls --
raindrops on the river.
The sounds of rocks bouncing off rocks;
the shadows of trees traced
on trees.
I sit, still.
The canyon river chants,
moving mountains.
The sermon spun on the still point:
dropping off eternity,
picking up time;
letting go of self, awakened
to Mind.
Falling and rising - spheres of
blackbirds.
Coming and going -
lines of geese.
Carrying
home
her baby
sister —
a
sermon walking.
Pointing at the moon,
making a point--
her lovely fingers.
Autumn - Short Poems and Haiku by Mike Garofalo
Thousands of leaves
shake in the breeze--
empty sky.
Bad karma bleeding
over centuries of hate;
a heartless eye for a blind eye,
a toothless scream for another.
One not two,
two not one -
legs on a snake.
ticking my life away
indifferent clocks
everywhere
gradually,
kensho--
a new born calf
wobbles
Coming in
let me nourish
like rain on a garden.
Going out
let me disappear
like geese going south.
Setting potted figs
along the warm southern wall--
a goose flaps by.
To dance
at the still point of the Time beyond time,
Beyond pasts, within futures, this
Moment
Now and forever, beyond minds.
Not knowing of Who or why
We stroll in rose gardens, and
Love.
Precious flowers in the sky.
Awakening,
I hear the truth--
gray rain on clay.
Often
Wide mind, deep feelings ...
poemless.
Buddha is dead.
But, if you meet the Buddha,
don't invent another god
or behead another demon; just
sip some tea under a tree.
"If you meet the Buddha, kill him."
- Linji Yizuan (Rinzai Gigen, Jap.), c 866 CE
The Mind is a vast Bodhi forest,
The body a Bodhi tree.
Dirt is in every cranny,
Flowers blossom, leaves fall.
The Bodhi Trees have been cut down,
The Bright Mirrors shattered.
Beginning with nothing,
Replant the trees, remake the mirrors.
Make one's mind like a mirror,
One's body like the Giving tree.
Reflect accurately and impartially;
Give fruit and shade.
rain-soaked
olive branches droop,
ground fogs rise
Crape myrtle, brilliant red, bursting
forth;
Hiding the garden.
Some days, only the Garden, entire, serene;
Yet, hiding from sight, shy, single plants.
Seeing Both, seldom, but as One:
Sweat poured from my startled brow,
Dripping on the dry earth,
And all became Sunshine
And shadows of surprise unraveling.
Lost on Mt. Sumeru
coming down--
the taste of snowflakes.
Bold zero
inked on the scroll--
fancies of one hand clapping.
Michael P.
Garofalo
Red Bluff, California,
Spring 2002
cold midnight
pounding rain--
only ghosts about
The truth beyond words
beyond silence -
her big grin.
I was thinking about "the Absolute"
(whatever that is)
yesterday. (Philosophers enjoy
the rush of mental masochism:
bondage to leathery ideas,
painful flagellation with cutting words,
the humiliation of utter confusion.)
Absolute Zero - Death!
Clearly, a deep shivering Super-Conducting
Absolute No.
Then,
The Past: a second ago, a century ago...
Dead Time - absolutely kaputt!
worries--
in and out
of mind
Pulling up
body and mind--
weeding new cuttings.
Zen Buddhist Poems, Zen (Chan) Poetry,
Zen Sayings, Taoist Poems, Taoist Sayings,
Daoist Poems, Daoist Poetry, Chan Buddhist Poems, Sayings, Quotations, Quips
Gathering dust,
an iron Buddha
just sits.
Meanings lost
in the saying--
the mystic's dilemma.
Koan 46
And before the Wise Ones appeared,
Forty million years of ducks in the mud.
Blowing out a candle
ten thousand miles away
Cutting up a duck for dinner.
A dog barks at nothing,
a thousand ducks twitch--
winds of winter.
Has a duck the Buddha-Nature?
"Sssshhh!
Stop quacking like a duck."
[One Short of a Baker's Dozen]
Not a leafbud
in a blue oak
grove--
shadowless winter noon.
A
frog floats
belly up --
dead silence.
Winter - Short Poems and Haiku by Mike Garofalo
no chanting
no Temple bells--
wind-chimes swaying
December fog--
among the leaves
a dead frog.
sunlight breaks
cold
silence
a meadowlark trills
One week later
Six Directions of Green
Billions of leaf-buds.
Red-winged blackbirds
pecking in the feeder--
I lost myself there.
Leaping from the Ledge of Infinite Regress,
The Unmoved Mover fell into Formlessness:
Pure silence echoed between the galaxies,
Eons of eons vanished in a second,
Withered trees bloomed in fires,
Polar mountains melted, rivers went dry,
Thusness scattered in sixty directions,
Space became Time, time became things,
Black Holes filled with Nirvana,
A billion samadhi mirrors shattered,
Galaxies snuggled within a single skull,
Many became One, One only, only One.
Then, the Divine Illuminatrix in All Beings
Opened Her clouded Eye, to see:
Flowers in the Sky.
Preachers
gagging on their Truths--
infants vomiting formula.
Samsara winks
Spring smiles--
Nirvana
trickles underground.
The dark pines edge the deepest shade,
While cherry blossoms set and fade.
Winter weeks we huddled by the hot stove,
Spring days we shivered in the sun,
Summer hours we sat in the shade,
Autumn minutes we stared at moon.
We had idle thoughts, we had no thoughts.
Life made our hearts cry, and it lifted our spirits high.
The ordinary, the exceptional,
The chosen, the accepted,
The very good, the very bad,
Fresh figs, rotten peaches,
The beautiful, the deformed.
They appeared and disappeared.
Samsara and Nirvana ....
Here and Gone.
Sunyata is form...
A blank journal; nine months to live.
Egg in the womb, waiting.
Sunday rest
on shaded grass--
Sermons by Cherry Blossoms.
Beneath the pond scum
deeper down
the pebble drops away.
Crazy Cloud Ikkyu--
skin on a skeleton
listening to the dead.
The True Gardener of No Title deadheads
Persona after persona, shears the hedge
Of endless desires, digs up the dank
Roots of illusions, prunes out the rank
Suckers of sectarian ire, and weeds away
Attachments that choke out the Way.
Ordinary time:
If you have a hoe, we will work together.
If you don't have a hoe, water.
Sermon time:
If you have a hoe, She will give you another.
If you don't have a hoe, She will take it away.
Last day of Spring,
ripe purple plums drop--
form is emptiness.
First day of Summer,
ditch completely dry--
emptiness is form.
Worldwide
many suffer--
even as peaches ripen.
Exactly at noon--
the branch cracks,
loaded with peaches.
Beyond barbed wire
Beyond, beyond, far beyond--
Cows marching Over.
Exuberant young dog:
wants in, wants out,
wants everything.
Spring: Short Poems and Haiku by Mike Garofalo
eyes horizontal
nose vertical,
a mind stood up
side
down
evening breeze--
yellow poplar leaves
letting go
Up in an old oak
a woodpecker knocks--
the sky opens.
Behind the iron Buddha's
Straight Back--
a cricket chirping.
good North, good South
good East, good West,
good here, bad wherever
moonlight calms
the frozen night--
long silence
Don't know mind
as wide as the empty sky;
above the dogma fogs
blinding the brilliant eyes
with sugared religious lies.
Beyond
the scarecrow's reach--
the Milky Way.
Wide-eyed staring into the Rich silence
Of mirrored space devoid of mind;
Not projecting or connecting, but reflecting
Supreme non-fictions, Things
Naked as they are, as they are ...
covering my coffin
in a black hole,
the weight of eternity
Stone Lagoon and sky
become one--
deepening fog.
Faces in the rolling clouds;
Thinking out loud, nothing strange,
Always Mind at its Game.
the particulars,
minute particulars--
revealing Nothing
preaching the Dharma
incessantly
the suchness of things
[In memory of R.H. Blyth.]
completely
finished--
a death poem
pilgrimage over--
their home is sacred
now
The Other-Fulfilling Prophesy comes true:
What you never thought you'd become, you do.
Soul Mates Extraordinaire
I never
grasped emptiness
or hiked around Mt.
Sumeru,
patted Chao-chou's dog
or teased Nansen's cat,
blocked the Bodhidharma's
uppercut
or slept in Han Shan's dirty hut,
borrowed Wendy Johnson's garden rake
or rode the Ox through the
Gateless Gate.
I never, ever
suffered the Great Doubt
or solved any of Rinzai's
riddles,
looked for sticks
in Yun-men's crapper
or broke Tassajara
bread with Shunryu Suzuki,
minded the flapping flag for Hui-neng
the sage
or heard Jiyu-Kennett move her whisk in Mt.
Shasta's shade,
chanted on Mt. Tamalpais
with Whalen, Ginsberg and Snyder
or saw Dogen's True Eye open just a little bit
wider.
I never did.
Nope, never!
Not in 55 lifetimes.
Yet, it seems like I did.
Yep, dayinanddayout,
appearances notwithstanding,
Reality appeared just So.
This I know:
their heritage is in my heart,
their myths mine,
these dear Friends of the Buddha Mind.
Interview with the Teacher, over before it began;
He rings the bell; next dokusan.
Taking aim--
the First Precept
falls.
In the blink of Time's eye
we lived, we died;
while stone faced Shasta was silent.
Speechless, Dogen stared,
Shivering in a turning white world
Raising cold dawn moons.
Bright white millions on millions
Of drifting flowery flakes
Fell fast from the Echizen sky.
Ice pure, elemental, quintessential
Wet, imperfect, flowing time
Packed by the hour, deeper
Deeper down to Winter's core.
The Temple of Eternal Peace creaked,
Snowflakes gathered on Dogen's robe,
One icy crystal streaked the True Eye
Glimpsing into Itself;
Another transmission:
Frozen flowers in the sky.
I turn and stare into the foggy mist;
Wondering, wondering, about what I missed.
Black birds
swarm on
by ...
filling
sunset
skies.
Transfixed,
I watch--
listening...
wide- eyed cows
taken in a trailer--
fruit in a basket
The cows have vanished down the road,
and the last clouds have floated away.
We sit together, the valley and me,
until only the valley remains.
(Thanks to the Taoist poet Li Po.)
Loosing ground from unconscious rounds
Of the "This is Not It" mantra sounds;
Burning holes in my soul
Over and over, no loophole
For escape. None! Replay Mind - Spellbound.
Six steps forward and
Seven steps back--
The Earth remains.
Railing against Do-Nothing Zen
Ekaku Haikuin presses that one hand, hard,
stamps his staff --
clap, clap, clap, Clap!
Shouting, spittle flying,
he prods, and pokes, and preaches
till the fawning monks scatter.
Haikuin sits alone the long cold
night
gazing into the fires of hell.
Ivy crawls
the walls of Shoin-ji;
night boats pass in silence.
An acorn falls--
six generations
cooled in the shade.
Leaf after leaf
turns yellow;
the fall of summer.
"You are That."
i am not That,
but part of That am i
and i a bit of That,
for the time-being,
for awhile, for a lifetime,
while That changes.
"That Thou Art."
Thou are not That,
except "That" as understood,
as idea, as assumed, as imagined;
as i
think i am, believe i am, wish i was;
while That changes what i am,
or will be.
"That" is elusive,
expanding to
the edge of the Big Everything,
at either end of the inside of infinity...
that is the way that That is.
Not like this piece of popcorn
on the tip of my tongue.
This cabbage, these carrots,
These potatoes, these onions
Will all soon become me.
Such a tasty fact.
Bless the farm!
Bless the market!
Bless the kitchen!
The raspy-voiced crow
perched on a pine pole
preached the Winged Dharma;
wayward birds trembled, fearing
rebirth as human beings.
Five Precepts
Non-violence
Honesty
Fairness
Moderation
Sobriety
Between the Sun
and the nearest Black Holes,
my home.
Last day of
Winter,
leafless walnut trees--
form is emptiness.
First day of
Spring,
clear sky to Mt. Shasta--
emptiness is form.
Daybreak--
forms are forms,
emptiness is speechless.
Be humble, for you
are made of
beans and seeds.
Be noble, for you
are made of
rivers and sunshine.
Be joyful, for you
have tasted one of
Xiwangmu's peaches.
No stars or orchards,
Only ground fog
Rising everywhere.
Sunday--
quiet hours,
no holiness.