In Place 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

Books, lamp, her mother's desk,

a small cot from which, lying down,

she may observe trilling leaves

of spring and fall cottonwoods

Most of her 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

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 oncoming exponential increase of 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)