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Poem – What Remains
What remains shrouded in smoke behind the veil we created? What is left when the empty field clears and our eyes open? So many questions remain at the end of each day with little reprieve to find the answers. The fires build and we respond or let them burn out with no intervention. I return…
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Poem – The Physical Manifestation of the Mind, Part 3
In a deep fog, a wakeful sleep, a field lit by ten-thousand lanterns reflects the chaotic sky passing through different sets of reality, a physical manifestation of the struggle, of the storm taking hold. In this clear moment, a disconnected view of what is true I let go of attachment and emotion and take hold…
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Poem – The Physical Manifestation of the Mind, Part 2
The threads fade into the background as the scene silences and I am left with basic and primal instincts, disconnected from the imagined physical world, pushing aside forced projections and loose words from false gods and prophets – my inner beast runs into the fields.
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Poem – The Mind Focusing
If my mind were turned inside out, flipped, and away from the lantern in the middle of one field, I imagine when I gained some semblance of control it would manifest as the mind realized in another field coming into focus.
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My religion is the open empty field
(1) I passed through the window looking for the outside and landed back here in my mind. When did I find this scene? I have never been here before but with closed eyes I smell the trees and summer afternoon. I can easily recall sepia-toned memories of the rusted red swing set surrounded by a…
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Poem – Dogs of Winter
Afternoon sun sets quickly as the wind scatters snow and ice through the forest. Summer ponds holding ducks assume a new role and face as the moon consumes the surface. The main path follows the base of the hill winding past wetlands. Ravens assume positions in trees surrounding the open field. The dogs of winter…
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Poem – Machines That Move Earth
(1) Putting aside hollywood notions of machine versus man – September morning is hidden in fog, coated with an early frost. Subdued sun scattered across fields, meadows, and prairies. The sky becomes the land becomes the horizon. We head north, leaving behind city lights and traffic for pine trees and winter in the air. (2)…
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Poem – From the Marathon
The poem “From the Marathon” from the reading on 05/04/14. This piece is part of a larger work titled “Marathon Through Open Fields”. I awoke running through snowy fields, the bison lumbering with frozen noses and hanging breath the autumn wheat dusted with snow, weighed down from ice pellets they do not budge when I…
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Poem – One Truth
The poem “One Truth” from the reading on 05/04/14. The rain filled dharma is still dharma. Rain falls in fields of white snow. If the snow is one truth, what happens when the snow melts what happens to the truth? It becomes the earth. No matter the state of being the state of mind the…
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Book Review – Cultivating the Empty Field
This is a follow-up to my previous post about the book “Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi”. This book is edited and translated by Taigen Dan Leighton and Yi Wu. I would consider this a classic Zen text and one every practitioner, from beginnings to masters should have. Included are…