How restlessly the buddha sleeps
between my ears, dreaming his dreams
of emptiness, writing his verbless poems
(I almost rejected"green tree
white goat red sun blue sea.")
Verbs are time's illusion, he says.

In the stillness that surrounds us
we think we have to probe our wounds,
but with what? Mind caresses mind
not by saying no or yes but neither.

Turn your watch back to your birth
for a moment, then way ahead beyond
any expectation. There never was a coffin
worth a dime. These words emerge
from the skin as the sweat of gods
who drink only from the great mothers breasts.

Buddha sleeps on, disturbed when I disturb
him from his liquid dreams of blood and bone.
With out comment he sees the raven carrying
off the infant snake, the lovers' foggy
gasps, the lion's tongue that skins us.

One day we dozed against a white pine stump
in a world of dogwood and sugar plum blossoms.
An eye for an eye, he said, trading
a left for my right, the air green tea
in the sky's blue cup.

Jim Harrison (Saving Daylight)

O Winebringer, the sun is up. Fill my goblet full of wine.
Hurry, for night will come, and then we'll have to sleep.

Outside, the doomsayers are announcing the end of the world.
Quick! give us some of Your delicious wine!

If it is fame and glory that you are looking for from the sun,
Then go back to sleep; there is only divine knowledge to its rays.

When Judgment Day arrives and the sky becomes a jug of poor clay,
Make your skull into a clay cup, and fill it with this pitcher's wine.

Now is not the time to be making small talk with your friends;
Speak only of the cup and of the wine.

Hafiz, get up! Get out of bed. You've work to do,
And the worship of wine is all the worthwhile work there is!

Hafiz

here's my snowy crown
time's tinted decrepitude
there's the frost in the courtyard
autumn's glittery breath
now I'm sick and just watching my wife
pick cure-alls
then I'm frozen waiting for the maid
to comb my hair
without the body
what use fame?
worldly things
I've put aside
tranquilly
I delve my heart
determined now
to learn from Empty Boats!

Po Chu-i

Sitting alone in peace before these cliffs
the full moon is heaven's beacon
the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light
wide open the spirit of itself is pure
hold fast to the void realize its subtle mystery
look at the moon like this
this moon that is the heart's pivot

Han-Shan

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought
was your grief

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams
he's living in another town
in the dream he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality
of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep

Humankind is being led
along an evolving course,
through this migration
of intelligences
and though we seem
to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually
startle us back
to the truth of
who we are

Rumi

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.

Ikkyu

click picture

Someone lives in a mountain gorge
cloud robe and sunset tassels
holding sweet plants he would share
but the road is long and hard
burdened by regrets and doubts
old and unaccomplished
called by others crippled
he stands alone steadfast

Han-Shan

Because the mind is free --
Listening to the rain
Dripping from the eaves,
The drops become
One with me.

Dogen

I
Do not
Want to step so quickly
Over a beautiful line on God's palm
As I move through the earth's
Marketplace
Today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved.

Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.

I do not
Want to step so quickly
Over this sacred place on God's body
That is right beneath your
Own foot

As I
Dance with
Precious life
Today.

Hafiz

click to enlarge

The sun can only be seen by the light
of the sun. The more a man or woman knows,
the greater the bewilderment, the closer
to the sun the more dazzled, until a point
is reached where one no longer is.

A mystic knows without knowledge, without
intuition or information, without contemplation
or description or revelation. Mystics
are not themselves. They do not exist
in selves. They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. I met a woman
once and asked her where love had led her.
"Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite."

Farid ud-Din Attar

Because the flowers blooming
In our original home
Are everlasting,
Though springtimes may come and go
Their colors do not fade.

Dogen

Indangsu sea, shine dark blue,
come rising as a cloudlike drumbeat.
The waters, the sailors who know the waters, may know
the dark fate of the world beyond
that lies past the path that sometimes appears,
the weeping of children born into this world,
and the sailors may know my daughter's path.
How can the waters exist without the world beyond?
Full-bodied fear
has now become the most yearned-for thing in the world,
and my daughter's whimpering stillness in the lotus bud will be such;
might love be a bright world and my eyes be plunged in utter darkness?
Daughter, already now the waters' own mother,
advance over the waters,
advance over the waters
like the mists that come dropping over the waters.
My daughter, advance and travel through every world.
Shine dark blue, Indangsu. Weep dark blue.

Ko Un

Keep on knocking
'til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who's there

Rumi

Ever since I saw the Beloved's face,
its lines have etched themselves on my heart.
I still nurse the wound of separation within me --
it has left me broken.

Flowing tresses may be a snare and a net:
those are pagan tresses
whose lure, like the bulbul, has sprung from the head,
bogged in the heart.

When ego is erased, duality disappears:
God's lover is himself God.
This is the heart's only home --
the heart in the lover, the lover in the heart.

O Seeker, you make a show of public worship,
then claim your share of desires.
The true lover carries within him, in secret,
the name of God.

Strange are the ways of the enlightened ones.
They weep and laugh in one breath,
scorn on the lip, grace in the heart,
profanity on the tongue, praise in the heart.

Some say God dwells in the temple,
others put him in the mosque.
What do you seek abroad, ignorant one?
Realize, oh Huma, God is within you.

Meher Baba

click to enlarge

The acrid scents of autumn,
Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear
Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn
And the snore of the night in my ear.

For suddenly, flush-fallen,
All my life, in a rush
Of shedding away, has left me
Naked, exposed on the bush.

I, on the bush of the globe,
Like a newly-naked berry, shrink
Disclosed: but I also am prowling
As well in the scents that slink

Abroad: I in this naked berry
Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush;
And I in the stealthy, brindled odours
Prowling about the lush

And acrid night of autumn;
My soul, along with the rout,
Rank and treacherous, prowling,
disseminated out.

For the night, with a great breath intaken,
Has taken my spirit outside
Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness,
Like a man who has died.

At the same time I stand exposed
Here on the bush of the globe,
A newly-naked berry of flesh
For the stars to probe.

D. H. Lawrence

Two beggars
sharing a meal of the food they've been given

The new moon shines intensely

Ko Un

All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every invitation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
did happen in our lives, our stories
are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body -- halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never

Denise Levertov

A flower is always happy because it is beautiful.
Bees sing their song of loneliness and weep.
A waterfall is busy hurrying to the ocean.
A poet is blown by the wind.

A friend without inside or outside
And a rock that is not happy or sad
Are watching the winter crescent moon
Suffering from the bitter wind.

Chogyam Trungpa

Dean Buchanan

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?

Han-shan

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

Rilke

The moon is encircled by moons.
How can I hold it
In my hands?
The unseizable moon,
Glowing in the brilliance
Of a million moons,
Rocks my head
In a lunar carnival....

Moon fruits adorn
The tree of the moon,
Flashing,
Luminously flashing.

I try to see
But my eyes cannot bear;
The rays of beauty
Dazzle them.

Lalan

These divine verses,
As I write
Are
The hallowed revelations
Descending
From on high
The sound of the scribe's pen
In the stillness of the night is indeed
The heavenly muse
Uttering her immortal words

Mirza Ghailib

They say the Sufi way
is to give one's life away.

The Sufi way is to become a sultan
on the throne of the soul.

In the station of the Path,
it is to destroy appearances.
In the station of Reality,
it is to become a guest
in the innermost palace of the heart.

They say it is to be pure of body,
the light of the Beloved.
The Sufi way is to gradually take off
the dress of earth and water.

They say it is to burn up in Love's fire--
The Sufi way is to be utterly inflamed
with the light of the Beloved.

They say it is to believe and follow the rules--
The Sufi way is to discover the rules
of the multitude of heavens.

They say it is to become a medicine for every ailment--
The Sufi way is to know and become all the secrets
of creation.

They say it is to destroy the illusion of bodies--
The Sufi way is to open the secrets of the body
with the key of the Divine Names.

O Sufi, to comprehend it, one must be it.
The one who gets lost in words
will never be their meaning.

They say it is to become the secret of God
within one's innermost heart--
The Sufi way is to read the outer signs
and know the inner meanings.

They say it is to be in wonder
at the greatness of creation--
The Sufi way is to be constantly amazed
by the nature of Reality.

They say it is to make each heart
the throne of God--
The Sufi way is to remove all else but God
from the heart's dwelling.

They say it is to watch over all humanity--
The Sufi way is to cover East and West
with every breath.

They say it is to shine as brightly as the sun--
The Sufi way is to perceive God
in every minute thing.

They say it is to be in harmony
with every kind of person--
The Sufi way is to appear
in a hundred thousand forms daily.

They say it is to be like Solomon
to the whole universe;
The Sufi way is to understand
and speak in every language.

They say it is to become an ocean
from a single drop--
The Sufi way is to make your heart a cellar
to hold the wine of the Truth.

They say it is to become a human being
illuminated with the light of Being--
The Sufi way is to destroy Being utterly
in the light of Non-Being.

They say it is to become a life
for each particle of life--
The Sufi way is to die a thousand times
and return to life each moment.

They say it is to become a master
of wisdom and eternal justice--
The Sufi way is to become an eye
looking out from every hair.

They say it is to surrender
your soul to the Beloved--
The Sufi way is to become
the soul of the Beloved.

They say it is the proof
of Muhammad's message--
The Sufi way, O Ibrahim,
is to embody God
as one's own self.

Seyh Ibahim Efendi

After awhile
when the search ceases
and the door fades
into the bliss of your awakening

after awhile
when the search ceases
and the door fades
into the bliss of your awakening

after awhile
when the search ceases
and the door fades
into the bliss of your awakening

only its song remains
like a smile on your original face,
water poems
running over river stones like the lotus blossom
of time
opening your untamed heart:

gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā