Battering upon the gummy silence I no longer feel any lever against this world. The deaths are too many, The births are too many, The headlines chronicle too many hatreds and wars. I have grown grey as much from the searing of ineffectuality as from individual decay. All I have left is a pencil, a voice, and a holy fire To reassert that beaches and rivers remain baptismal and beautiful, That youth remain fervent and devoted, That joy remains the only great liberator. I will strike … [Read more...]
News - Poem
Dharma Rain
October 9, 2015Mother Rain S 1:80 vuṭṭhi alasam analasañca mātā puttaṃ va posati vuṭṭhibhūtā upajīvanti ye pāṇā pathaviṃ sitā ti The rain pours down on weak and strong As a mother nurtures her child. The spirits of the rain sustain All creatures who dwell on the earth. * Slipping Away Heraññakāni Thera Thag 145 accayanti ahorattā, jīvitaṃ uparujjhati, āyu khīyati maccānaṃ kunnadīnaṃ va odakaṃ. Days and nights go hurtling by Till our lifetime comes to an end. the life of mortals slips … [Read more...]
King Pasenadi Goes on a Diet (Samyutta Nikāya 3:13)
October 9, 2015Once when the Buddha was living at Sāvatthi, King Pasenadi of Kosala ate a whole bucketful of food, and then approached the Buddha, engorged and panting, and sat down to one side. The Buddha, discerning that King Pasenadi was engorged and panting, took the occasion to utter this verse: Now at that time the brahmin youth Sudassana was standing nearby, and King Pasenadi of Kosala addressed him: "Come now, my dear Sudassana, and having thoroughly mastered this verse in the presence of … [Read more...]
The Steadfast Family Man (Anguttara Nikaya 5:40 & 3:48)
October 7, 2015Most Buddhists have always been and continue to be laypersons and householders. These verses from the Numerical Collection of discourses paint a picture of a householder who is both refuge and support for an entire family unit or of a community. Of course these days such a person might just as soon be a woman as a man, or might even be an organization or a group. In either case it is the shelter provided by faith and virtue that enables the family to flourish. Its members are protected from the … [Read more...]
Buddha in the Forest (Samyutta Nikaya 7:18)
October 6, 2015A Face So Calm
October 6, 2015Fully Quenched
September 15, 2015When Anāthapiṇḍika, the wealthy merchant from Sāvatthī, visited Rājagaha one time on business, he found the household of his wife’s family in great commotion and unable to greet him with their characteristic style. He was told by his host that the Buddha had been invited for a meal the next day, and all the preparations were for this momentous event. The sound of the Buddha's name, we are told, stopped Anāthapiṇḍika in his tracks. “Did you say ‘Buddha?'” he asked three times, as if sensing some … [Read more...]
No Harmful Thought
September 15, 2015Is it really impossible to imagine that such an attitude is attainable? We so often hear such sentiments dismissed as idealistic or impractical. It seems taken for granted that humans are just hateful creatures, that animosity is an adaptive instinct and that “of course" we will hate those who threaten us. Who could blame us? The Buddha was showing us a more noble way of being human. Yes, the impulse to lash out against those we fear does lie within us all as a latent tendency, and it is all … [Read more...]
Attached to Nothing
September 15, 2015This is an archaic poem in the Sutta Nipāta, and the language is thus rather compressed. Existing translations vary widely, and this is my best attempt to make sense of the verses while matching the traditional meter’s eight syllables per line. I think Posāla is a yogi of the old school, skilled in attaining formless states of consciousness through intensive concentration practice, including the seventh of the eight stations of consciousness known as “the sphere of nothingness.” This is a … [Read more...]
The Greatest Happiness
September 15, 2015These verses are said to have been uttered very soon after the Buddha’s awakening to Mucalinda, the Nāga (Serpent) King, after he coiled seven times around his body and spread his hooded head to protect the Awakened One from rain. This mythical imagery aside, the poem offers a cogent definition of happiness at four different, gradually intensifying, levels of scale. The ascetic monk finds happiness in dwelling alone in the forest, far from the web of social responsibility, … [Read more...]