Hasu Transitoire (The Transient Lotus)

What a delight to find an old notebook (gold leaf lotus design on the cover no less!) full of travel notes, directions, observations, food memories, and poems. I was instantly transported back to August/September 2009 (time? what time?) with all my senses as I read through the slightly weathered pages. Thought I'd share some... Shibuya at Dusk Orange lights flash in unison…tangerine pulse one, two, three Crimson cab pulling over             Pulled over                         Stopped Lace doily seats and gloved hands coming into full view Teal heals and bubble dress floats away Work weathered faces march fixedly homeward Wide eyed youth warriors just starting their dance Lights effervescent but still subdued. Umbrellas dangle gingerly from wrinkled hands, A push cart…a scooter…shoe shuffling Adorned with digital accoutrements aplenty (My window perch above and outside of it all…observation central) Byōdōin 平等院 The Essentials of Salvation alive in a colorful masterpiece No

目                                  The art of Hans Haveron 口                                  Church & State Bistro 読                                  Tom Wolfe The Purple Decades (1982) – a delicious assortment of short stories 耳                                  Monsters of Folk “Dear God (Sincerely MOF)”   クリックして             www.rosebarling.com “The old alchemical dream was changing base metals into gold. The new alchemical dream is: changing one’s personality – remaking, remodeling, elevating, and polishing one’s very self…and observing, studying, and doting on it. (Me!)” – Tom Wolfe, “The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening”  

Here we have a very old letter from a Chan master that outlines his views of meditation...what do you think? Da hui 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163) I will show you instructions. Beginners gain a little from quiet sitting work, and delight in themselves. Further, I say: I do not dare foolishly form fixed views of quietude. As the yellow-faced old guy (Sakyamuni – related to saying that Buddha is Lao tzu) said, a metaphor would be if there was a person who stopped up their ears to his high sounds and cries loudly and seeks [help] and cannot hear himself. This is truly making trouble for oneself. Supposing the birth and death mind (ignorant mind stuck in samara) is not yet broken, day and night are muddled and ignorant states. It is just like a dead man whose spirit has not dispersed. All the more, how can he find the spare to do the work of understanding quietude, of understanding boisterousness? In the Nirvana assembly, the broad foreheaded butcher tosses away his blade and just then becomes a budd