Bright windows prove helpful
old eyes look for a needle's next
plunge. Where will it come out?
Every time, it seems to surprise
Her
teacher tells her she is a nun. She begins sewing a black robe. It's
too hot for that, so she pokes a hole in the wall, to run a fan. For a
break, she sits in the shade of the cottonwoods, sipping switchel. Quail
run across her legs, one by one.
Let go of emptiness and come back to the brambly forest.
Riding backward on the ox, drunken and singing;
Who could dislike the misty rain
pattering on your bamboo raincoat and hat?
In empty space you cannot stick a needle.
-- attr. Dongshan Liangje, The Five Ranks tr. Leighton in
Cultivating the Empty Field, 77