In Place 30

Everything within reach,

including the broom:

spring cleaning is quickly done

in a room eight by ten






"Allow no dust to cling." Plenty of dust remains after nearsighted Old Woman sweeps.

When the old woman wants to read a book, she extends her arm; when she wants tea, she extends her arm. Pretentiousness? Contrivance? Of course! But the genuine is never absent; it's up to her to notice.

Sweeping away mist and clouds, the purity of the universe is revealed, As, together with the wooden man, we all enjoy a spring of great peace. 

-- Zukui Jifu in Eminent Nuns, 144 (Beata Grant)

 

 

In Place 29

 From the end of this pasture

she looks back: if there were

suddenly no hut, there would still be

grass, trees, stones and stream





Pasture with the little dog, late May.

Everything here is exactly as it is.



The body and mind of the Buddha way is grass, trees, tiles and pebbles, as well as wind, rain, water and fire.

— Dogen (tr. Tanahashi)

In Place 28

The young-old monk, watcher
over infants and mad crones,
gets a late spring offering —
handful of vinca blossoms





Jizo once greeted visitors to the homestead, but lost his head more than once as water hoses were hauled around the garden. In his new location at the hut he is a hermit, but has never left off his practice. The stone behind him was raised from the dry creek bed the preceding summer.

Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines --
jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it.

-- Shitou, "Song of the Grass-Roof Hut" in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (1924-33) reprinted in Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field, 2000, tr. Leighton and Yi Wu