In Place 41

Year round, here, she can make

yard tea; always something green:

fir needles, blackberry leaves, nettles --

easier in high summer





Hiding from the westering sun, she hangs shades from the eaves.



    Yunyan was boiling some tea. 
    Daowu asked who he was making it for. 
    Yunyan answered, "nobody special."
    "Why doesn't he make it for himself, then?"

    -- Soto Zen Ancestors in China, Mitchell, 72.

In Place 40

Horses and bison tread

past her south window at dawn;

she pulls back the east shade.

how many days without sun?





The few mornings the old woman has awakened at the hut instead of the farmhouse have been notable for a certain quiet sublimity, especially in winter, with the small creek roaring nearby. One could say that in the exurbs one can experience something of what Chinese hermits go to remote mountains for, but then, one should be able to practice anywhere without making distinctions, yes?

By blue waters, in green hills are places to stroll quietly; near valleys, under trees are places for clearing the mind. Beholding impermanence, do not ignore it, for it encourages the mind to search the Way.

-- Keizan, "Instructions on How to Do Pure Meditation" (tr. Nearman)

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 38

She stays some nights, by

lamplight studying, or in

bed, watching the moon

stray among still branches 




The solitude of the hut's location is brought to her full attention when she realizes how long the walk-in would be in darkness and rainy or icy conditions. "Should I get up and check my flashlight batteries again?" she wonders, pulling the blanket up to her chin.


    I don't let white clouds leave the valley lightly
    I escort the moon as far as my closed gate

    --Han-shan Te-ch'ing in The Clouds Should Know Me By Now 120 (tr. Red Pine)

  

In Place 37

Bison have moved south

across the snow to accept

farmers' delivered hay;

no geese fly, no starlings chat





The hut’s large windows permit close observation of the life cycles of one’s plant and animal neighbors. One comes to realize there is no separation.

If we think, “I am here and the mountain is over there,” that is a dualistic way of observing things.

--Shunryu Suzuki, Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness 28. 

 

In Place 36

Atop her desk, "one who listens

to the cries of the world" rests

in emptiness, yet serves to salve 

inner and outer wounds 





A friend donated a statuette of Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin (Jp. Kannon), the bodhisattva who “hears the cries of the world.” It’s evidently a mass market copy of the great (2m height) Song Dynasty Guanyin currently on display in the National Museum of China, Beijing. The pose is Royal Ease, and Guanyin appears to be teaching while holding a lotus-flower wish-fulfillment jewel. Above the statuette on the wall there is a framed copy of the Heart Sutra; to the left there is a framed enso or empty circle from one of the series of the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (Ox and Ox-Herd Both Gone Out of Sight)." To the right is a framed photograph of the memorial statue of Mugai Nyodai (1223-1298), first abbess in Japanese Zen, who is said to have burned her face with a hot iron in order to be accepted to live and study among male monks.

With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear.
-- Avalokiteshvara in the Heart Sutra.

 

In Place 35

Sun slants across the room

differently each day; sometimes her

young friend (who points to the earth) shines

but sometimes darkness holds him





Sun strikes the young man on the altar mostly in winter. At the height of summer he reposes in shade. There is no hindrance; light and its absence require each other to make one universe.

In darkest night it is perfectly clear; in the light of dawn it is hidden.
It is a standard for all things; its use removes all suffering.
Although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words.
Like facing a precious mirror; form and reflection behold each other.

-- Dongshan, "Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi" in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (1924-33) reprinted in Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field, 2000, tr. Leighton and Yi Wu

 

In Place 34

The waterfall that runs in Autumn

runs, fills the hut with white noise;

to air dark corners, old woman

slides a window open -- bang!





The waterfall’s music begins usually in late October or early November and in late May or early June it stops; though in 1993 it ran all year.

So many years spent idly contemplating
The immense white layer on the mountains;
This winter, all of a sudden,
I see it for the first time as a snow-mountain.

-- Dogen (tr. Stephen Heine)

In Place 33

 Snow seals heat within;

she steams white rice,

tea and veg to have with

scenes of falling white

The snow helps dampen road noise from nearby civilization. She sits, then gets up to muck about. Before long, thoughts creep in that leave her feeling defeated. "If in sitting one finds no distinctions, where do all these distinctions come from to crowd in as soon as I rise to pour tea?"

Snow besieges my plank door I crowd the stove at night
although this form exists it seems as if it doesn't
I have no idea where the months have gone
every time I turn around another year on earth is over

-- Han-Shan Te-Ching (tr. Red Pine)

In Place 32

In a snow year, break trail

to brew tea and read, 

or make nine bows as incense 

drifts toward drafty walls






A hat, gloves and coat make a fine robe for morning service.

One who is drinking water knows well enough if it is cold or warm.

-- Huang Po (after Blofeld, tr.)