One Bright Pearl

Dogen instructed,1
Students of the Way, do not worry about food and clothing. Just maintain the Buddha’s precepts and do not engage in worldly affairs. The Buddha said to use abandoned rags for clothing and beg for food. In what age will these two things ever be exhausted? Do not forget the swiftness of impermanence nor [...]

I have always loved the poems of Han Shan. One of my favorite is number 26 -

Since I came to Cold Mountain
how many thousand years have passed?
Accepting my fate I fled to the woods,
to dwell and gaze in freedom.
No one visits the cliffs
forever hidden by clouds.
Soft grass serves as a mattress,
my quilt is the dark [...]

I’ve had vocation on my mind for quite a long while, probably most of my adult life, this thirty odd years. There are a lot of things, a lot of subjects that I have come to know. A few I am pretty adept at but no joy has manifested there to sustain my interest, my [...]

“What is there to worry about, what problem exists now?” I often ask myself when I realize that I am a million miles from the present, fixated on a perceived problem. All it takes is a single look and problems dissolve. Yet the fact remains, I must work out a means to support myself as [...]