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janvier 2009

Everyness

By | 2015-10-02T14:42:30+00:00 janvier 3rd, 2009|Textes|

There is something somewhere in this daily record that is more and less than what I think it is and also not more not less than what I think it is. The everyness overwhelms all attempts to capture a moment. Now the night is clear and bitter cold. On my wall, a Lee Miller photo: [...]

Having to start somewhere

By | 2015-10-02T14:45:40+00:00 janvier 1st, 2009|Textes|

According to our accepted and utilitarian convention, this is Day 1. I have to start somewhere. So I open at random Francis Ponge's Le parti pris des choses, a Christmas gift from my son, to page 92. It says: Le Galet (The Stone) Le galet n'est pas une chose facile à bien définir. (The stone [...]

décembre 2008

Master, are you awake?

By | 2015-10-02T14:46:13+00:00 décembre 31st, 2008|Textes|

As we near what we call year's end and then enter what we call new year, an old Zen poem comes to mind: A water bird comes and goes, Leaving no traces at all. Yet it knows How to go its own way. May you go yours and I go mine, together on this way [...]

Endgame/Fin de partie

By | 2015-10-02T14:47:00+00:00 décembre 28th, 2008|Textes|

The new year approaches and I come upon this perfect bit of dialogue from Samuel Beckett's Endgame: Clor: Do you believe in the life to come? Hamm: Mine was always that. I wonder about mine. And yours?

Silent night

By | 2015-10-02T14:47:35+00:00 décembre 26th, 2008|Textes|

It's a silent night. After all the giving and getting, the expectations and preparations, the obligations, inspirations, connections, separations, exaggerations, what is left tonight of Christmas? Who gave, and what was given? Who received it? Christ stood on the Mount of Olives not long before his death and wept as he overlooked the teeming city, [...]

Une vision immédiate

By | 2015-10-02T14:48:38+00:00 décembre 23rd, 2008|Textes|

Winter sun in my eyes casts long shadows of tea cup, pile of papers, hand moving with pen, sesame seed, crumb. Bright is bright, darkness dark in this pale season. The vine climbs the stone wall without leaves so brilliantly. I keep looking to see what it is. But it is so naked that it [...]

Seeing and being seen (one big blue ocean world)

By | 2015-10-02T14:49:35+00:00 décembre 14th, 2008|Textes|

The latest installment on stilltv.com from my dear friend Peter (KuKu) Cunningham, longtime dharma bum/photographer/clown with Bernie Glassman Roshi, is of a heart/mind project with his photo students during a workshop in Shanghai last month. His one big blue ocean world is, as ever, well worth a look: http://www.stilltv.com/china/2008/seeing-seen/

Where my life turns

By | 2015-10-02T14:50:37+00:00 décembre 10th, 2008|Textes|

My teacher wrote this verse, a quote from Nisargadatta, on my rakusu: "When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that's wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that's love. Between the two is where my life turns.''

Play of the Day, with Jo-Ha-Kyu

By | 2015-10-02T14:52:28+00:00 décembre 8th, 2008|Textes|

I awoke to dark morning today. Although I see that it has now lightened to a watery gray, I do not see how or when. The advancing thick of day feels spindly, like bare trees, and yet it is full with a thousand branches. Makes me think of the structure of a Noh play, which [...]

Waiting for Picasso

By | 2015-10-02T14:53:05+00:00 décembre 5th, 2008|Textes|

They are all lining up, well-heeled, under umbrellas in the rain for Picasso and "the masters" here. Tickets reserved, coats checked, headsets ready. Everyone is as they should be. And the genius of 20th-century art is, too, and all the masters are, too. A parentheses of erotic drawings makes sparks, and Yo, Picasso from 1901 [...]