Stolen

Sticks and stones may break my bones

My bones will fully heal

Names will hurt forever more

And my soul will steal

Bury My Body

Bury my body in the mountain behind the temple,

cover it with dirt and go home.

Read no sutras, hold no ceremony.

Receive no gifts from monk or laity.

Let the monks wear their robes,

eat their meals,

and carry on as normal days.

-Takuan Soho

Beserker

I’ll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood,

Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,
Those who wade out into battle?
Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle
They bear bloody shields.
Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.
They form a closed group.
The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men

Who hack through enemy shields.

His Dark Side Speaks; After Dark

After dark, crept silent into misty mountain park.

Children’s climbing frame eerily jutting out of grassy knoll, silent, chamber echo of children playing, deathly absent.

Shadows splayed distant gust trees swaying.

Walk to frame, body drained.

Single one arm pull up pulls up tired strength full.

Head bowed black hood crowned.

Depart.

Vacant park cemetery hollow dwelling vacuum void inside.

I am cold. I am empty. Lost myself. Come find.

Poets On The Peaks

I’m reading this great book about Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Jack Kerouac, and with mentions of Allen Ginsberg, about their time spent on fire lookouts in the North Cascades of the USA.  It’s quite neat to read the real-life stories of these folks that are given new names in Jack Kerouac’s book The Dharma Bums – which is a most excellent read as well.

The 1950′s beat Buddhism generation were ahead of their time – beating the hippies of the 60′s and 70′s to the punch.  These folks fell in love with the Diamond Sutra (aka Diamond Cutter) and carried those old copies of Goddard and Suzuki around with them at all times.

Probably the most important thing about these people, at least to me, revealed through this aforementioned work, is how in order to write poetry and books, they used real life events applied to their craft.  They ate peyote, took Benzadrine and drank copious amounts of alcohol before sitting down in their chairs to write.  At one point, while Jack was up there on Desolation fire lookout, he came face to face with something other than what he was expecting; Jack was hoping to come face to face with God, Buddha or some Source while isolated and alone up there on the mountain – instead he came face to face with himself.

While I don’t engage in any consumption of drugs or alcohol, I am still able to gain insight into these people’s lives.  This work shows these revered poets and authors in true light: as human beings on a personal path of struggle and how some of the made it out the other end, and some of them died trying.  After all, I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle such harsh criticism from Alan Watts on my book and would have drank myself into the depths of hell just as Jack did (and wrote about in Big Sur).

But in my heart of hearts, these men will remain for what they were: extraordinary because there were so ordinary.  May their works live on forever.

CTK

Goethe; Gravity

How the gravity of Nature and her silence startles you,

when you stand face to face with her, undistracted,

before a barren ridge or in the desolation of the ancient hills.

-Goethe

A Warrior’s Creed

His Dark Side shared this with me via email:

I have no parents:
I make the heaven and earth my parents.

I have no home:
I make awareness my home.

I have no life and death:
I make the tides of breathing my life and death.

I have no divine powers:
I make honesty my divine power.

I have no means:
I make understanding my means.

I have no secrets:
I make character my secret.

I have no body:
I make endurance my body.

I have no eyes:
I make the flash of lightening my eyes.

I have no ears:
I make sensibility my ears.

I have no limbs:
I make promptness my limbs.

I have no strategy:
I make “unshadowed by thought” my strategy.

I have no design:
I make “seizing opportunity by the forelock” my design.

I have no miracles:
I make right action my miracle.

I have no principles:
I make adaptability to all circumstances my principle.

I have no tactics:
I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.

I have no talent:
I make ready wit my talent.

I have no friends:
I make my mind my friend.

I have no enemy:
I make carelessness my enemy.

I have no armor:
I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.

I have no castle:
I make immovable mind my castle.

I have no sword:
I make absence of self my sword.

a warrior’s creed – anonymous samurai song – 14th century

Collected: Tattoos on the Heart

The poet Rumi writes, “Find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich flinging gold to all who ask.  Live at the empty heart of paradox.  I’ll dance there with you – cheek to cheek.”

With That Moon Language by Hafez
Admit something;
Everyone you see, you say to them,
“Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud;
Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this,
This great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with a full moon in each eye
That is always saying
With that sweet moon
Language
What every other eye in this world
Is dying to
Hear.

A homie supplies an excuse to Norma Gillette, who has worked at Homeboy longer than anybody and consequently has heard it all: the homie says to her, “I have Anal Blindness.”  “Anal Blindness?” she says.  ”Yeah, I just can’t see my ass coming to work today.”

The poet Rumi writes, “Close both eyes to see with the other eye.”

Woody Allen says, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Thich Naht Hahn writes that “our true home is the present moment, the miracle is not to walk on water.  The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.”

Emily Dickenson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, that sings the song without the words and never stops at all.”

“How many things have to happen to you,” Robert Frost writes, “before something occurs to you?”

“You are the sky,” as Pema Chodron would insist.  ”Everything else, it’s just weather.”

Mary Oliver writes, “There are things you can’t reach.  But you can reach out to them, and all day long.”

Read the book: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7090193-tattoos-on-the-heart

Darkness Shall Be Light

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

~  T.S. Eliot  ~

Courage

Now, whoever has courage and a strong and collected spirit in their breast, let them come forward, lace on the gloves, and put up their hands.

-The Poet, Virgil

Before I Sleep

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

– Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Take The Time

Take the time

To read a book

In silence

It will calm your mind

And feed your soul.

CTK

Man Up

Store It Up

First my parents came to visit for 10 days,
Was nice,
Then I tweaked my knee and sprints were put on a hold,
Like ice,

Then my kids were sick, my wife was sick, then me,
No doubt,
So parts of my training on the back burner,
Thrown out,

So I’m doing what I can,
While I’m nursing my health,
I store it up,
Like I put it in a jar on a shelf,

So what this look like in a week or so,
When I’m back to my norm?
Come and join my in the tornado,
This ain’t no eye of the storm.

CTK

Full of Light

Live in rooms full of light
Avoid heavy food
Be moderate in the drinking of wine
Take massage, baths, exercise, and gymnastics
Fight insomnia with gentle rocking or the sound of running water
Change surroundings and take long journeys
Strictly avoid frightening ideas
Indulge in cheerful conversation and amusements
Listen to music.

— Aulus Cornelius Celsus

Dreams Do Not Die

Dreams do not die.
Dreams are not heart, nor eyes or breath
Which shattered, will scatter (or)
Die with the death of the body.

Dreams do not die.
But dreams are light, voice, wind,
Which cannot be stopped by mountains black,
Which do not perish in the hells of cruelty,
Ensigns of light and voice and wind,
Bow not, even in abattoirs.

But dreams are letters,
But dreams are illumination,
Dreams are Socrates,
Dreams – Divine Victory!’

-Ahmed Faraz

Gathering by Rumi

This is a gathering of Lovers.

In this gathering 

there is no high, no low,

no smart, no ignorant,

no special assembly, 

no grand discourse, 

no proper schooling required.

There is no master,

no disciple.

This gathering is more like a drunken party,

full of tricksters, fools, 

mad men and mad women.

This is a gathering of Lovers.

by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

Ode to a Nightingale By John Keats

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats (circa May 1819) (extract)

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

(Full poem here; http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odetoanightingale.html )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bosouX_d8Y

My Destiny

My destiny lays sleeping amongst the shadows,

Painted with strokes of fear over her face.

Dwelling in the night time,

Is where my destiny holds its place.

 

My destiny remains castrated,

Adorned by shame and rejection.

Her mind completely stagnant,

Offered with no protection.

 

She lays still.

Fears’ shackles become her.

In her lonely world,

My destiny’s winter leads to no summer.

 

Imagination intruded,

Fear watches over with it’s eyes.

No hope,

My destiny lays paralysed.

 

My pain stays concealed

Sitting in the smallest ball,

Wrapped up tight

Encompassed by the highest wall.

 

However,

The mask wears a confident grin.

Look into my eyes it is certain,

My destiny cannot win.

My Destiny

 

My destiny lays sleeping amongst the shadows,

Painted with strokes of fear over her face.

Dwelling in the night time,

Is where my destiny holds its place.

 

My destiny remains castrated,

Adorned by shame and rejection.

Her mind completely stagnant,

Offered with no protection.

 

She lays still.

Fears’ shackles become her.

In her lonely world,

My destiny’s winter leads to no summer.

 

Imagination intruded,

Fear watches over with it’s eyes.

No hope,

My destiny lays paralysed.

 

My pain stays concealed

Sitting in the smallest ball,

Wrapped up tight

Encompassed by the highest wall.

 

However,

The mask wears a confident grin.

Look into my eyes it is certain,

My destiny cannot win.