Lily

Dear Sangha, meet my new toy.

In my own case, it's not yet what it may seem: I walk a lot. Even hike, admittedly with two sticks. But I absolutely cannot stand in a queue. I have obtained the device to get in line for vaccinations and such.

I like it; amazing what all I can store under the seat. I'm sure it will come in even more handy later. 😄 What with the Second Law and all.

I think I will call it Lily, as it is my lily pad where I can sit and wait for whatever turns up. In the evening Jupiter, bright, resplendent. In the morning Venus, resplendent, bright.

-- shonin

A frog's way of sitting is much better than our zazen. I always admire their practice. They never get sleepy. Their eyes are always open, and they do things intuitively in an appropriate way. When something to eat comes by, they go like this: gulp! They never miss anything, they are always calm and still. -- Shunryu Suzuki

In the inn that is this world
People come and go in a flash.
The moon shines on the hill bamboo,
Alone I sit and hear the kingfishers.

Spring rain, a pondful of frogs:
Going in and out, like the drum beat,
Chanting and turning a thousand sutras.
What is the use of reading texts?

All my life I have lacked cleverness,
My early learning was sleeping beneath the trees.

-- Poems of Cheongheodang (1520–1604) tr. Whitfield and Park


If you want to comprehend this essence, you should know that the voices of frogs and worms, the sound of wind and raindrops, all speak the wonderful language of the dharma and that birds in flight, swimming fish, floating clouds, and flowing streams all turn the dharma wheel. -- Bassui

 

The luminous moon drifts by so lightly,

The sutra hall lies silent without a sound.

Bits of moonlight pierce the cracks between the bamboo,

Its round refulgence perches in the intersecting pine branches.
The dew dampens the nests filled with noisy swallows,

The wind combs the grasses filled with croaking frogs.

I sit with the master after the ceremony is over

As, face to face, we straighten out our robes.

-- Shiyan, in Daughters of Emptiness tr./ed. Beata Grant

 

furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto
an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water -- Bassho

At my shady house,
My two legs stretched lazily,
I find endless joy
In hearing the summer frogs,
Singing in a hillside field.

-- Ryokan (tr. Nonoyuki Yuasa)

 

In Place 39

She has worn a path

deep enough to feel her way

with feet on glassed grasses:

ice on gate awakens her





In frost, the path is reliable, but in rain, its heavy clay slickens. She carries small flat stones, and when her foot slides, she drops one in that spot and tamps it in with her heel: slowly a cobblestone way is established.


    All night, a gentle rain fills the darkness outside
    My long years of hard travel are over at last

    -- Ryokan in Great Fool: Zen Master Ryōkan: Poems, Letters, and Other Writings 140 (Abé and     Haskell, tr.)
 

In Place 22

A quiet fellow waits out

morning service, anxious

for his daily walk along

green country ways, reading sign





Shown here at age seventeen, this cairn terrier is mostly blind and deaf, but can find warm sunny spots and lives by scent. The old woman thinks of their walks as a kind of kinhin, or walking meditation.

On either side of the footpath rises a row of green pines.
Over the valley, the scent of a wild plum is wafted to me.
Each visit to this place yields me a fresh spiritual gain.

-- Ryokan (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa, The Zen Poems of Ryokan 57)