Sublime

A verse by Ikkyū reads: What is mind? The sound of the wind in the pine tree in the brush painting.

"Nec bella fuerunt, Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes." "Nor wars did men molest, When only beechen bowls were in request." "You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man

There is an old saying in the Zen Buddhist tradition: “Before Zen study, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; during Zen study, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; after Zen study, mountains are mountains again and rivers are rivers.” Of course, this all sounds very linear: before, during, and after, with en

Haruko left a tiny laughing brass Buddha up high, in a corner of the attic, where he is still laughing to this day.

“Whip, rope, person, and bull—all merge in No-Thing. This heaven is so vast no message can stain it. How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire? Mediocrity is gone. Mind is clear of limitation. I seek no state of enlightenment. Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists. Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me. If hundreds of

He set the horse’s face north toward the stone mountains running thinly under the edge of the sky and he rode the stars down and the sun up. It was no country he had ever seen and there was no track to follow into those mountains and there was no track out. Yet in the deepest fastness of those rocks he met with men who seemed unable to abide the si

Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation, ed. Carole Tonkinson. New York: Berkley, 1995.