ShivAllahSita sutra 99

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Listen,all creeping things - the bell of transience.

~Issa

In an afternoon of locust sounda red-tailed hawk alights uponthe gray

and greening walnut tree out in a meadow golden slowlyturning in a

blueness swirlingtree and hunter equally into thevast approaching

night, the moon-lace light, the star-spunnight of some delight

beyondthe ken of color, keenerthan an insects' teethupon a walnut's

leaves,green things windingmindlessly around themselvesfor comfort,

extending lifefor sake of life, unconcernedtheir flowers at the dawn

of daymay blossom into meals for preyingYamas sitting fat upon the

branchesof a tree with roots in that same soilthat anchors it beneath

a sky that knowsno light no dark no life no death no other wonder.

~Mazie & b

Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.

~George Meredith

For numberless years I have wandered deep and far in this landscape of

myself.I have waded out into the ocean of forgetfulness, swallowed up

at last in that sea of mystery, and now I am washed ashore on the

waves of your indulgence, singing my little songs of

remembrance.Perhaps at night one of these tiny tunes may insinuate

itself into some neglected pocket of your wonder, and you will awaken

with a particular tear upon your cheek.In that tear is everything I

have come here for, everything I am.Everything is seeking, yet from

the shore, can you stop the boat gone out to sea?Beyond these words,

persist.Unless you can get to the marrow, you will leave this table

dissatisfied.The tear is a kind gift from you to yourself.Can you

welcome it, ordid you think that stepping off the cliffwas perhaps a

kind of metaphor?Choice or choiceless?Beyond the stalemate

persist.Sailing off from the safe shore of certainty into the current

of vivid life, whichever way you turn, you are confronted with the

lies of what you know, and the truth of what you don't.Have you

intuited yet your deepest yearning?There is something life wants to

do with you.Are you willing to listen to your soul whisper, so

familiar, like the evening chimes in some abandoned ruin of a

temple,the temple of your heart? The ever-present music just behind

your thoughts isthe source of these tears that spill on your cheek,

yet all you want to do is to go back to sleep.Don't go back to

sleep!Stay here with me for a while, let your cares drop off like the

weary rags they are. In our innocent nakedness, we can point like

little childrenat the beauty of this brilliance pouring all around

us, weaving shadow and light into colorful tales of lost and

found,forgetting and rememberingwe are that.We can whisper all the

questions the water asks the sea, andlisten for the answers sung in

seashell, tide, and moon.Songs love to be sung. Can you be the song

your soul wants to sing?I am here to sing it with you.Our yearning is

not different. We can remember our original voice together.It is the

voice that has never been bound, never been limited.Never despaired

at the fragility of what transpires from life to death.Never

faltered, though the most delicate beauty seems to fall and rot.The

closer things approach nothingness, the more exquisite they

become.Your own exquisiteness makes me weep, and now my tears roll

across our cheek.There is a gleaming, glistening in our eyes that

only magnifies our tenderness.This magnificent tenderness is yet

unfamiliar to those who entertain preferences. To those who would be

strong and storm heaven's gates.To those who believe.We can

relinquish such fantasies, because we have felt life's lips pressed

against the vulnerable tissues of our heart, and not resisted. This

is all we need to know, that knowing at last submits itself tothat

which open-armed embraces the unknown, and rests there, at home, at

peace.

~Mazie & b

 

Multiple Choice Games for Hiroshima Day

 

 

1. Hiroshima memory:

a) When I was five, I thought a `hiroshima' was a plane.

b) When I was five, I thought a `hiroshima' was the

chrysanthemum on Japanese stamps.

c) When I was five, I pointed to a picture of the

mushroom cloud. 'What is that?' I asked. 'That,' said

my mother, is Hiroshima.'

 

 

2. Hiroshima history:

a) Hiroshima was the gateway to Itaku-Shima, the

beautiful 'island of light.'

b) Hiroshima was the site of a haunting summer

festival.

c) Hiroshima was an important military centre.

 

 

3. Hiroshima a-bomb triggers:

a) Suicidal Japanese soldiers caused the a-bombing

of Hiroshima.

b) Dedicated American scientists caused the a-bombing

of Hiroshima.

c) Patriotic American accountants caused the a-bombing

of Hiroshima.

 

 

4. Hiroshima and good people:

a) A good person deplores radiation sickness.

b) A good person deplores killing anywhere.

c) A good person deplores having had to kill Huns,

Nips, Nazis, skinheads, government agents, house

invaders anywhere.

 

 

5. Hiroshima and Dresden:

a) What is different about Hiroshima and Dresden is

that Dresden could be seen to resemble Coventry.

b) What is different about Hiroshima and Dresden is

that there had been fewer Jews in Hiroshima.

c) What is different about Hiroshima and Dresden is

that Germany didn't surrender ten days after.

 

 

6. Hiroshima and desperation:

a) During World War II more Japanese soldiers

suicided than were captured by the U.S. Army.

b) During World War II more Japanese soldiers were

captured than Japanese sailors were captured.

c) When a warship is sinking it is sometimes difficult

to tell whether the sailors are suiciding or drowning.

 

 

7. Hiroshima and optimism:

a) The good thing about the Hiroshima bomb was that

it taught children everywhere to make paper cranes.

b) The good thing about the Hiroshima bomb was that

it taught North Americans that individual humans

might live somewhere like Hiroshima.

c) The good thing about the Hiroshima bomb was that

it made world leaders think about the third world war

and forget the second.

 

 

8. To establish justification for the bombing of

Hiroshima:

a) Ask a crewmember of the 'Enola Gay.'

b) Ask a scientist from the Manhattan project.

c) Ask a CNN columnist.

d) Ask a Smithsonian curator.

 

 

9. Hiroshima and reporters:

a) Reports say the Japanese government was ready to

surrender.

b) Reports say the Japanese armed forces would have

never surrendered.

c) `Reports' can mean gunshots or a distant bomb

blasts.

 

 

10. Hiroshima and consequences:

a) The Hiroshima bomb wiped out family life at the

Shinomura Clock Factory.

b) The Hiroshima bomb wiped out the godliness of

Japanese emperors.

c) The Hiroshima bomb wiped out Professor Suzuki's

Japanese a-bomb program.

d) The Hiroshima bomb wiped out a herd of sheep in

Mountain Springs Utah.

 

 

11. Hiroshima and power:

a) When the Hiroshima bomb was dropped Japan had

3.5 million soldiers on duty.

b) When the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, Japanese

troops controlled all of Borneo, most of China, all of

Korea, most of Thailand, all of Malaya, all of Viet

Nam.

c) When the Hiroshima bomb was dropped there were

three hundred and ninety thousand civilians in

Japanese internment camps.

d) When the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, a

Japanese-Canadian spacecraft could be observed

observing at a safe distance.

 

 

12. Hiroshima and good things:

a) the good thing about the Hiroshima bomb is that it

helped ordinary Japanese people not feel guilty about

comfort women or medical experiments on Chinese

prisoners.

b) the good thing about the Hiroshima bomb is that it

helped humanity enjoy 50 years without fighting and

killing.

c) the good thing about the Hiroshima bomb is that it

helped Americans feel guilty about being winners.

 

 

13. Hiroshima and Canada:

a) Canadians and Belgians supplied uranium for the

a-bomb and this makes them immoral.

b) Canadians and Belgians supplied uranium for the

a-bomb but trusted the United States to act morally

because they had studied United States history.

c) Canadians and Belgians should not have supplied

uranium for the a-bomb because they had read

Huckleberry Finn.

d) Canadians and Belgians supplied uranium for the

a-bomb because they shared certain public policies

with the United States and Japan on the treatment of

other races.

 

 

14. Hiroshima and technology:

a) The people who died in the bombing of Tokyo are

just as dead as those who died in Hiroshima.

b) The people who died at Nanking are just as dead as

those who died in the bombing of Tokyo.

c) The people who died at Auschwitz are just as dead

as those who died at Hiroshima.

d) The people who died at Hiroshima are just as dead

as those who died at Guernica.

 

 

15. Hiroshima and love:

a) The best thing about the Hiroshima bomb is that it

brought the Japanese and American people together.

b) The best thing about the Hiroshima bomb is that,

although long exploded, it is still here.

c) The best thing about the Hiroshima bomb is

Hiroshima mon amour.

 

 

16. Hiroshima and you:

a) When I was five, I thought wars were fought by

soldiers.

b) When I was five, I thought tanks, bombers, and

battleships were beautiful.

c) When I was five, I thought black-out curtains were

a part of B.C. architecture.

d) When I was five, I thought the end of a war was a

good thing.

~Frank Davey

We sit in the midst of this vastnesslooking out through eyes of

vastness, the mystery of anything appearing at all, a startling shock

at first of mindless embodiment, simple aware space in which

everything is just as it is, awesome in its ordinariness, without

need or motive to beotherwise, facing each other in glad submission

to the silence of this moment here, a wordless rippling serenity,

feeling of being itself,falling into the smile now filling the space

between us, widening and deepening, outshining any possibility of

anything but itself, this happiness in the recognition, the

remembrance of itself as this, this breathing world, these infinite

forms, these simple fingers gently entwined, warm blood surging

beneath the skin, skin enrobing tiny nerves, muscles in mysteries

called hands, "our" hands, held together near the evening fire, so

anciently, as in agreement homeward-flocking gracious cranes winging

the thread between two worlds swims sudden tears into our eyes, Shih

Teh,needless of any explanation.~Mazie & b

Come my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers,

and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

~Shakespeare, Hamlet V,I

Wrapped in cotton robes of the Unknown,thin, open, wind-rustled,I come

to the Winter Solstice, wheregrass, already wildly growing freethrough

this skull, encircles the fruitless fruit Jar of No-Mind.One small

plum tree along the path -its mantle of silent song snowing all

around me, as this -a springing forth from any constraints of time

and space, Yes, Yes, thisbranching breath -the breathlessness of this

momentcovered in tiny, fragrant, white blossoms –deathlessness amidst

the darkest winter hour.Winter Solstice, and the black tea is hotwith

floating plum blossoms concentricallyswirling around each other as I

too circle around that which circles ceaselessly around me.~Mazie & b

Paradise -I see flowersfrom the cottage where I lie.

~Yaitsu's death poem, 1807

The eye lifts skywardthis dusk falling, callingto look higher look

upover the horizon that bluethat bluecoloring this momentsome

formless freedomflows into form as greenas greenI remember the

thistle grew from an eaveholding nature against the nightand the

night approached itselfwith tremendous desire --I wanted to touch

thatas I stared at the milkweedagainst the sky.The universe

existsbecause of us, our lovefor these forms.We can wink at the

dream.We can touch, stare,flow into each other aslight flows into

itselfat dawn, at dusk.Two pieces of a puzzlefit together

perfectly,leaving only onemystery.This mystery of dreaming, andthe

dreamer.The one whodreams us now as two,Cold Mountain and me --we

awake in the midst ofdreaming, only to findthere is only dreaming.We

seem to meet each otheragain and again here, alwaysrecognizing the

futility ofresisting the night,approaching itself with tremendous

desire, wanting to touch a thistle in an eave.

~Mazie & b

On Reading Some Writings By WomenSometimes I think of a swallowbeating

its wingsagainst a wire mesh:if she pulls her wingstight tightwill she

get through?Or I think of a childhitting its fists against granite

rockwhen there’s no doorsMama she cries, MamaOr a beeblindly

bumblingagainst a window pane:my helping hand creates more

confusionThe woman inside that boxcalled "home"cannot wrench offthe

roofAlways aloneThese lost ones arewhile their mates are standing

aroundlaughing~Dorothy Livesay

The way of others isnot my way, moment to momentI discover my

own.There is no certaintyin being true, this is justthe way things go

alongon Cold Mountain.I cleaned my cave byfirst removing myself,then

everything resumed its natural state.One day the sound of the

murmuring brookstopped, and a sudden gratitudefilled my heart.Now it

just runs on,sometimes noticedsometimes not.We can't be free unlesswe

already are.Isn't it so?When every direction is the same,we can relax

and enjoythe ride.Something exhales.Birth and death tenderly

caress.Love peeks out from underthe covers, smilingcoyly,grinning"Oh,

what did I miss?"~Mazie & b

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the

unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above

everything else is safety.

~Henry Louis Mencken

When we are softened and opened enough toaccept things as they

actually are, toaccept that we are, yetcan never know what that

is,the old conflict knotting the heart, the wanting of something to

be other thanwhat it is, subsides.There is great mercy here.We can

allow the anxious animals tomove closer and huddle next to us --all

searching creatures of the daylight, yearning for the welcoming

embrace of a tenderly falling night.Vastness pumps itself

luxuriouslythrough every bloodstream,circling an oasis namedthe

heart.The heart is the abode;it has no boundary of flesh,thought,

feeling.This bloodstream originatesin the same source asanxious

animals,lovers, sense ofself.The energy required to resistand oppose

is the same thatpowers the contraption of clinging.I left that

rusting machine at the base ofCold Mountain, near the riverbank with

my uniform of reason, and now I float, naked on the currents, dazzled

by the glinting streambed stones passing swiftly beneath me.

~Mazie & b

Is childhood ever long enough, or a happy time, or even a beautiful

summer day? All of these carry the seeds of the same fierce mystery

that we call death.

~Eugene Kennedy

Cold Mountain –teach me the art of motionless flight.You glide

majestically through silent starfields, and yet all stars appear

within your own infinite body.When you murmur in such tender

whispers, humming softly, nameless stars will gather beside me

tonight.There's no climbing down from this ledge now.There's no

poetry I can answer with, exceptto be the poem opened by the same

hands youuphold the stars with.~Mazie & b

Vain vision! when the changing world each daySees some such lordly

pleasance pass away;When the mere stripling knows my symbols allWorn

tokes, heaven hypothetical,Nature indifferent, and the dreams of

menFigments of longing which we must condemn.Yet keep these plants, O

Man! a kinder timeMay yet be moved by them to better rhyme,Or moved,

like me, to place his pleasure low,On the firm Earth, whence Men and

Blossoms grow.

~Ruth Pitter, 1897-1992, Other People's Glasshouses, 1941

I like the darkness. Night comes like fog comes,presses me into the

shore, andI become the night, the shore, this pressing, and still I

askO Friend, where is the sky?I cannot see the moon tonight.I have

lost sight of the stars.In a dream within this dreamy realma

night-creature wandered too close,out into the open, hungering for

something I no longer possessed.I am a stranger to myself now.I am a

loner on a caravan that never departed.I am the raccoon in the road

at wagon's impact.I came here to commit suicide.~Mazie & b

If you really want to draw close to your garden, you must remember

first of all that you are dealing with a being that lives and dies;

like the human body, with its poor flesh, its illnesses at times

repugnant. One mustnot always see it dressed up for a ball, manicured

and immaculate.

~Fernand Lequenne

The wind is up today – Hey!Many kites contestthe breeze.We're always

choosing favorites,yet one sky welcomes all without distinction.For

all our efforts to compete:we only struggle withourselves at last

till,falling down at our own feet, find victory in our defeat.~Mazie

& b

You find a flower half-buried in leaves,And in your eye its very fate

resides.Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;Soon enough, you'll sweep

petals from the floor.

Terrible to love the lovely so,To count your own years, to say "I'm

old,"To see a flower half-buried in leavesAnd come face to face with

what you are.

~Han Shan, circa 630 CETranslated by Peter StamblerCold Mountain Buddhas

Just this: spilling morning shine of lightframed by cave mouth

openingcrimson blossoms of alone magnolia, erupting in simultaneous

riots of dewy ecstasy,expressing perfect fire heart ofthis, creation,

golden dawn's first blisskiss smeared across new crisp blueface of

empty sky, my own.~Mazie & b

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautifulblendings and

communions of death and life, their joyousinseparable unity, as taught

in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed

star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as

beautiful as life.

~John Muir

How wonderful to swim back and forth between shores, where the green

grasses equally dance in the sea-side breezes!

~Mazie & b

Someday I'll be a weather-beaten skull restingon a grass

pillow,Serenaded by a stray bird or two.Kings and commoners end up

the same,No more enduring than last night's dream.

~Ryokan, 1758-1831

This moon, a two-faced beauty --she warms up from the night skywhile I

falter, frozen in my tracks,hobbled by my blood beatingto the rhythm

of irresistibility.Steady goes this feint to look away.Still,

reflected in the pond,that same face once resisted.I cannot stop this

falling into Heart.Chanting Prajnaparamita, I'm slipped into some

sacred sighexhaled from depths of night.This moon-faced daughter of

Mara –Ah now,she lives in me!~Mazie & b

Fate! Fate! All things pass away;Life is forever, youth is for a

day.Love again if you mayBefore the stars are blown out of the skyAnd

the crickets die;Babylon and SamarkandAre mud walls in a waste of

sand.

~John Gould Fletcher, 1886-1950, Mexican Quarter

>From the translucent earthplum blossoms have sprungswaying from their

root, bark and branch -delighted by their own fragrance!I shall savor

my own perfumewhen the flowering minddrops its petals.In Spring, drunk

on plum wine –Oh, such inebriation!In Winter,awake while

sleeping,talking through the dream,sober.~Mazie & b

In the presence of eternity,the mountains are as transient as the clouds.

~Robert Green Ingersoll

If you try to hold of it,it will fly away from you.If you let it take

hold of you,it will become you,the life of your life,and the stream

will continue its natural way,and you will not knowhow that will

flow, but rather than a fearful thing,this will be your heart's

delight.

~Mazie & b

A ruin is not just something that happened long ago to someone else;

its history is that of us all, the transience of power, of ideas,of

all human endeavors.

~George Schaller

Out of the ditchwater,tall, wild irisemerge from gray mud.Inside a

sleep for eons,I drifted to the edge of all this.A voice trailed

off.Beautiful, wild irisgrow tall in still water.

~Mazie & b

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning, We will come

back to earth some fragrant night, And take these lanes to find the

sea, and bending Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches And the long

gentle thunder of the sea, Here for a single hour in the wide

starlight We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

~Sara Teasdale, If Death is Kind

Wandering the town streets,attending to moonlight,Moon returns the

favor bytipping off a flagpole and landing in a net of welcomingtree

branches that grew themselves for just this reason –to prove there

are no accidents.Chime tones charm the receptive breeze heralding

happy ancestral beings, parading like a troupe of circus clownswith

spirit bowls balancing on their heads, some spilling a white wine of

starshine. Like a recalcitrant drunk fallen off the wagon again, I

suddenly can't resist my old tricks – juggling with torches of light

and illusion,whistling a tune from the innocent days, more in love

than anyonecould ever imagine!~Mazie & b

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.It is the

breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.It is the little shadow which

runs across the grassand loses itself in the sunset.

~Crowfoot

The past?Oh General!The war is over --nobody survived.Nobody had time

to mournthe dead, the sunrise was too captivating:long trails

ofbattle smoke strewn across the dawn's early skydissipated over Cold

Mountain,as if the dream of nightitself exploded, as iffrom now on

there would only be the light of day until that too falls from the

eyes, andwhat remains tends not to mindbut heals a wound at the

heart.Fight on anyway --do your best!Chew your food well,the stomach

will tell whenthe head on your shoulders flies through the

air,another identity beyond repair.Perhaps each head will reincarnate

as a kind of moon, orbitingits own promised world,drifting in a space

once hopedwould be the casewhen peace ruled every planet,and love

outshone the stars.~Mazie & b

We must endure our thoughts all night, until The bright obvious stands motionless in the cold.

~Wallace Stevens

I am the oneyou keep meeting, as if for the very first time,

forgettingwe were inseparable before the world began.Whether this has

any significance for younow is neither here nor there.A lot of things

have changed;as they dowe do.I barely recognize you anymore,so much

have you come to resemble me.If you pour me a good glass of wine,I

might just ramble on & on.I wait in the meadow wherethings and

no-things have becomevery playful with each other,listening for your

silent footsteps.When Maitreya comeshe will hear only an echo ofa

distant kind of humming,purring on the breeze that toys with whatever

is left of your memories,slipping inside your certainty likethe smile

of Baby Gautama, andbetween your thoughts you may rememberI am

you.~Mazie & b

I love the fall. I love it because of the smells that you speak of;

and also because things are dying, things that you don't have to take

care of anymore, and the grass stops growing.

~Mark Van Doren

If I try to say anything about this, consider that it is

everythingspeaking simultaneously toeverything.Just so, how can

anythingbe said, except in the saying of itsomething newemerges.The

earth speaks in new grass, snow,chrysanthemums.The mountain speaks

inboulders, trees,waterfalls.The sky speaks insun, moon,cloud.Han

Shan hears, weeps,laughs.Ah, what secrets within your own bright true

mind!~Mazie & b

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