The body is the tree of enlightenment,
The mind like a clear mirror stand;
Time and gain wipe it diligently,
Don't let it gather dust.

- Shenxiu

Enlightenment is basically not a tree,
And the clear mirror is not a stand.
Fundamentally there is not a single thing -
Where can dust collect.

- Huineng, Sixth Zen Patriarch in China, 638-713
Transmission of Light, Thomas Cleary, p. 140

Brian Walker (Hua Hu Ching)
This is a amazingly insightful book.
Also check out his translation of (Tao Te Ching)

NIN HURT LYRICS

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of shit
Upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

You can have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Trent Reznor

Non-Duality

The bell tolls at four in the morning.
I stand by the window,
barefoot on the cool floor.
The garden is still dark.
I wait for the mountains and rivers to reclaim their shapes.
There is no light in the deepest hours of the night.
Yet, I know you are there
in the depth of the night,
the immeasurable world of the mind.
You, the known, have been there
ever since the knower has been.

The dawn will come soon,
and you will see
that you and the rosy horizon
are within my two eyes.
It is for me that the horizon is rosy
and the sky blue.
Looking at your image in the clear stream,
you answer the question by your very presence.
Life is humming the song of the non-dual marvel.
I suddenly find myself smiling
in the presence of this immaculate night.
I know because I am here that you are there,
and your being has returned to show itself
in the wonder of tonight's smile.
In the quiet stream,
I swim gently.
The murmur of the water lulls my heart.
A wave serves as a pillow
I look up and see
a white cloud against the blue sky,
the sound of Autumn leaves,
the fragrance of hay-
each one a sign of eternity.
A bright star helps me find my way back to myself.

I know because you are there that I am here.
The stretching arm of cognition
in a lightning flash,
joining together a million eons of distance,
joining together birth and death,
joining together the known and the knower.

In the depth of the night,
as in the immeasurable realm of consciousness,
the garden of life and I
remain each other's objects.
The flower of being is singing the song of emptiness.

The night is still immaculate,
but sounds and images from you
have returned and fill the pure night.
I feel their presence.
By the window, with my bare feet on the cool floor,
I know I am here
for you to be.

 Thich Nhat Hanh  

Spilled Speech

As everyone drifts off to sleep,
I am still staring at the stars.

Separation from you does have a cure.
There is a way inside the sealed room.

If you will not pour wine,
at least allow me half a mouthful
of leftover dregs.

Secretly I fill my sleeve with pearls.
When the love-police detain me,
let your moon come down
and hold me in its arms.

Officer, I know this man.
I will take him home.

Let my wandering end as the story does
of the Kurd who loses his camel.
Then the full moon comes out,
and he finds what he lost.

These rocks and earth-forms
were originally sun-warmed water,
were they not?

Then the planet cooled
and settled to what we are now.

The blood in our bodies carries
a living luminous flow,
but watch when it spills out
and soaks into the ground.

That is how speech does,
overflowing from silence.

Silk on one side,

cheap, striped canvas on the other.

Colman Barks(Rumi poems)
and interview

One New Orleans solution?

Click picture to see video