The Realizational Poetics of Mujū Dōkyō

When we consider waka as a means to religious realization, we see that it has the virtue of serenity and peace, of putting a stop to the distractions and undisciplined movements of the mind. With a few words, it encompasses its sentiment. This is the very nature of mystic verses, or dharani.

The gods of Japan are Manifest Traces, the unexcelled Transformation Bodis of buddhas and bodhisattvas. The god Susa-no-o initiated composition in thirty-one syllables with the "many-layered fence at Izumo." Japanese poems do not differ from the words of the Buddha. The dharani of India are simply the words used by the people of that country which the Buddha took and interpreted as mystic formula.

……………………………………………………

Now we refer to the poetry of "wild words and specious phrases" as "defiled poetry," because it lures us to attachment, imbues us with vain sensuality, and decks us out with empty words. But poetry may express the principles of the Holy Teaching, accompany a sense of impermanence, weaken our worldly ties and profane thoughts, and cause us to forget fame and profit. If, on seeing the leaves scattered by the wind, we come to know the vanity of the world; and if, on composing a verse on the moon hidden in the clouds, we become aware of the unsullied Principle within our hearts, then poetry mediates our entry upon the path of Buddha and becomes a reliable tool for understanding the Law. Accordingly, men of old practiced the Law of Buddha without rejecting the Way of Poetry. . . . Although anything can be a cause for religious awakening, waka is ideal.

~ Mujū Dōkyō (tr. Robert Morrell)

A Poetics of Kukai (Kōbō Daishi)

The basis of the teachings of the Great Hermit (i.e., the Buddha) is to benefit sentient beings by the teaching of names. For the benefit of the world, writing and composition have their origin in the times of virtuous people. Consequently, in the midst of emptiness and in the midst of rubbish there was the appearance of written characters. On the turtle shell and the dragon back, natural writing is disclosed. The transformation from the age of the sages of ancient times over many revolutions of celestial bodies is reflected in the educational training of the people of all the countries on earth. Like the sound of all sorts of musical instruments, laypersons were governed by the brilliance of writing. Elegant! Lustrous! In the internal worlds and the external worlds (the world Buddhists and non-Buddhists), who remembers this? As an old sūtra says, the non-backsliding bodhisattvas surely were the first to understand writing and composition.

Confucius had these sayings, “My children, why do you not study the Book of Odes? The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. They may be used for purposes of self-contemplation. They teach the art of sociability. They show how to regulate feelings of resentment. From them you learn the immediate duty of serving one's father, and the remoter one of serving one's prince;” and, “The man who has not studied the Chau-nan and the Shao-nan is like one who stands with his face right against a wall.” Thus, the meaning of writing and composition is wide! It is far reaching!

Through writing, the five sounds are captured and the significance of five colors is grasped. Through composition, reason shines. The meaning of writing is not obscure. The cause of writing is explained by name. In intonation, the meaning is grasped. The name explains clearly, those not yet awakened become aware. The three teachings (Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism) share in this. The five vehicles share the same wheel track. Why do strangeness and difficulties enter the sūtras? The Laozi has profound and solitary harmony. Confucius stated immediately and directly. Ziyu and Zixia grasped his words. Qu and Song wrote brilliant poems. Those of the two Han periods were the ancestors of our words. The writers of the three countries were our older brothers. The essence of rhyme was transmitted by mind. Meter was transmitted orally. The successors of Shen Yue and the Liushan; the predecessors of Wang, Jiao, Cui and Rui. The theses on the four tones developed. The taboos of literary production were debated. Yellowed scrolls over flowed writing boxes. Carts were filled. On the path there are the poor yet cheerful, those who have abandoned the circles of copying, the child and the one who loves the pursuit of knowledge, making decisions without cause.

The mendicant (I), under the guidance of my maternal uncle, studied literature, studying abroad in Changan China and listening to other theses. Even though my strong motivation was quiet meditation, I did not waste this opportunity. 

Selection from the Thesis on The Mysterious District of the Mirror of Writing in Kōbō daishi zenshō (Complete Works of Kōbō Daishi) translated by Ron Green ( http://ww2.coastal.edu/rgreen/kukaipoetry.htm ) 

New Clothes

the emperor

  is clothed

    in guilt.

the sage

  is naked

    in love.

o to be

  an honest

    stripper!

Shunzei on the Way of Depth in Poetry

While the Law that was taught by the Buddha himself has profound meaning, poetry, by contrast, may seem to be mere playing at "empty words and ornate speech.” Because poetry, too, reveals the deeper significance of things, however, it can also communicate the Buddha's Way. Moreover, scripture tell us that "even the very desires and attachments themselves are enlightenment," and the Lotus Sutra that "even secular works and actions intended to promote life are all in accord with the True Law of the Buddha." The …Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva of Universal Wisdom further explains that while we may say that "this is sinful" or "this is good," in fact both "sin" and "good" are unreal, for the heart itself is Void. In this sense, we may speak of the Way of "depth" in poetry, too, in the light of the …Dialectic of Void, Provisional Reality, and Mediated Reality, for it also communicates the Way of the Buddha's Law.

 … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

…if as time passes I can come to an understanding of the limitless profundity of the Buddha's Law through an understanding of the profundity of Japanese poetry, I will thereby create the effect of being reborn in paradise and will be able to realize the Bodhisattva's vow to save all living beings. Then, in fact, I will have turned my words of poetry to praise of the Buddha that can travel far and wide to those countries that have heard the Buddha's law and lead the beings of this world to enlightenment.

~Shunzei (tr. David Pollack)

Rashomon: a live-tweet viewing diary

rashomon

first, not understood. there was an accident on the way. no, the wind is the cause!

using the passage of silent time as the dialogue between the characters.

with kurosawa, it's not so much an influence of silent films as it is the understanding of silence. and the significance of action.

talkies were so fascinated with voice, it became all noise!

clint eastwood owes his existence to kurosawa's understanding. curious name there too when you don't think about it.

the secret to the code of rashomon. everything bad is forgotten. everything good is remembered. everything forgotten is remembered as good.

but what is no recollection?

how great is it when she begins to laugh maniacally? you go girl!

is rashomon actually a radically feminist film?

as a sidenote, well aware of the vagaries of all translations, i'm always suspect of the accuracy of subtitles in foreign films.

when her laughter stops, it gets real.

the dream is driven by fear and not anything else.

maybe the best interpretation of a swordfight ever!

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst

     Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand"

is the bystander really innocent?

aka. the witness.

"i don't want this place to be hell"

kurosawa must have been like an adult among children who thought they were adults

ah, now comes the pearl of the story!

god i love seeing long unafraid silence in a movie as if the director is so confident in one's inspiration, we can't wait. but we must.

now comes the monk's story. hmmm.

so. the entire story is that of the monk. very interesting. and so. either completely true or false. your call.

the ending which appears to be a beginning?

great movie deserving of reputation. nothing is revealed. side note, interesting that some of the tics of mifune character appear in yojimbo

end rashomon. or is it?

it's all about what you believe. which is why ultimately it's all about having no belief about belief.

Call and Response

Division is the thing and love is seeing through it.

We join this story now in progress. It doesn't matter if the name was Cain, but somebody got killed and someone else is bound to get revenge.

Division is the thing and love is seeing through it.

Despite the universal truth that separation in this one holistic universe is unrealistic and impossible, the personal condition is accepted as the norm.

Division is the thing and love is seeing through it.

In a world accepting separation to be normal, war is not just inescapable, inevitable, and unpreventable, it's the definition of the state itself.

Division is the thing and love is seeing through it.

Who’s not to say the mental illness of a person is directly in proportion to an inability accepting this insanity as normal?

Division is the thing and love is seeing through it.

A knowing child is born into this world and cries to nurse upon a mother's breast.

Division is the thing and love is seeing through it.

A Very Mystic May Thirteenth

An oriole is being golden-voiced. Sea-level mountain air is expanding my appearance into gossamery glass.

I feel the druid life force of the spring like universal electricity illuminating every leaf and every cell within this body.

I am being powered by the source to know the source is what I am and I am That and this is Tao one syllable irradiating at a time.

These words reveal the infinite experience that's always there but overlooked until forgotten.

Within a cobalt sky, awareness pays attention and this being spends it on a thought or two.

The fool is thinking that it's me; devotees work for my intent; and I direct the universe so I may know myself.

Fantastic in a flash, this world is manifested. Every setting is bejeweled and every scene is circled with a ringing knowing.

Please excuse me for my one beloved is appearing now and I must go and join her.

The Peepers of Buddha Nature

Last night I listened to the peepers celebrate this paradise to which I came after I'd escaped from almost twenty years of marriage going down the crude proverbial tubes.

I heard them first in spring of ninety-five and I had never heard their like before, the chorus of an earth awakening from ice and its oblivion. They teach a simple lesson though.

The paradise that's lost is never really lost; it's in a state of limited suspended animation. So when I found this place, an unexceptional apartment on an antediluvian island in a tidal river valley,

I knew it wasn't just this place that was defining freedom, but thoughts defining my imprisonment had finally melted away, revealing what is always here although I had forgotten.

Too often we will move from place to place attempting to escape a state of consciousness which follows us from place to place, and even waits for us if we enjoy some sweet but short vacation. The irony is almost tragic.

So when, again, I found this place, I also, by some grace, had recognized I had to value its reflective qualities allowing me to then investigate the state of consciousness itself,

as if those peepers in the wetlands looked within, discovering they're not only of the earth, but they’re the earth itself, and winter is a season only passing through them.

Paradise, in other words, is not a place. It's what I am, this consciousness, this space.

The Unknown Sun and the Moon of Wu Wei

The cherry blossoms are departing and the lilacs in the dooryard are in deepest purple bloom. Fantastic tales are told by every latest leaf.

An absolute and unknown sun of pure awareness is reflecting in the moon of mind within the silent midnight sky of universal consciousness.

O wonder of that heavenly intent, now this moon is full upon the passing of its fourteen days of evolution, or it's fourteen million years,

depending how you measure. There is nothing one can do but bask within the light and watch as earthly shadows are directed.

Last night I woke within a dream as if rogue runaway thoughts had been impersonating the solar unnamed one, usurping its subjective singularity,

forgetting its intent, and doing everything it does to keep itself in insubstantial, incongruous, alienating motion.

But even such absurdity is powered by the simple way and sees in time surrendering is all the motivational free will it owns instead.

And resting in that unknown hour between the darkness and the dawn, the moon is shining free and knowing in its boundless springtime bed.

James Carville's Treatise on Enlightenment

Early leaf and bird call. Hiker, be like God. And keep your topographic map inside your own back pocket.

No tradition has been more successful than experiential now. This consciousness is all I know

and all I know about the world is in that knowledge. Yes, my yesterday is just a memory; now has nothing near in common to the past.

Turning words that point to now into a practice or belief or even worse, religion, is traditional,

and killing Buddha, Jesus, Zhuangzi after following their point to here and now is just a form of self-defense.

And finger me no finger; it's the moon, O stupid!

The Unknown Sonnet

Experience directs thought; thought impersonates experience.

Poetry is the song of bodhisattva.

My mythology is my poetry.

The first koan: now is three.

Body-surfing six foot waves.

The valley spirit can't get lower.

Not taking a stand is not the same as no mirror.

Play your character as if Tao was writing it.

First flash fiction: the unknowing knows.

You have to forget yourself before you know yourself.

The body is my sweet ride.

You make your night as long it needs to be.

The more I'm sure of myself, the less I know myself.

Evolution. Tao. Holy Spirit. Intent. Now without thought. Amen.

LNB-T5 Collateral Damage in Asserting Self

It was training in the art of self-assertion. The way I see it now is very simple. First you learn to build a house before you tear it down.

Or put more playfully yet crass, before one sees through this division, you'll need to grow a pair. Or show them off.

Otherwise, you're always lost in letting others build the edifice without the understanding that it's just a building of so many stories.

Of course, it's more destructive in its practice than a simple education in following your bliss, intent or Tao.

The fact is others had assisted in constructing what my person was and my adjusting, realigning, or creating something new

is bound to be a little disconcerting to a wife, for instance, who worked so hard to get her apprehensive partner to the point of some respectability

as a husband and a father and a member of society, if not exactly in good standing, then, at least a member.

So when I quit my part-time job, she was vociferously disappointed. And when I lost my job of ten full years

and started looking for another more in line with interest than merely money in itself, she threw me out. For half-a-year.

The Long Nervous Breakdown: Take Four

I question if this story is of any value. But it's the hardest thing I've ever written. So that means something. Still, it’s just a story.

We were sitting at the kitchen table to talk about unspoken matters which were driving us apart.

We both had our psychologists and could not afford a separate marriage counselor. So we tried to work things out amongst ourselves.

It was a big heart-breaking mistake. At some point, the conversation turned from love to war.

My strategy was simple. Tell her she no longer turned me on. I'd rather use a magazine than sleep with you, I thundered.

But she was ten-thousand times my better at this kind of thing. And not to go all psychological, but her parents both were alcoholics

and her childhood atmosphere was one of hurtful words and then denying they were said at all. It was a world of sad illusion for a child.

And what came next, although she would deny it really happened after all and that she only wished to hurt me

and that I in fact had just attempted something similar, I never could successfully forget, forgive, or understand, although, God knows, I tried.

She looked at me and laughed, I've used much more than pictures. Do you remember passing out that night when they demoted you at work,

she stabbed her finger straight at me. I told you, I replied. Those fuckers needed me to be the fall guy.

Sure, she said, and Nick came over, drinking you beneath the table. Well, he made a pass at me that night.

We left you in the living room and went upstairs. I guess he fucked the both of us. Real good. Her words, not mine.

The Long Nervous Breakdown: Take Three

When she stopped the car, I didn't exit. Instead I started sighing, I don't know, repeating it as if a formula to keep me grounded.

She waited silently until I stopped. I have to say, despite the wretchedness that would occur between the two of us in years to come,

she hit the right notes on that night. I think you need to see someone, she said. I looked at her in working class hero horror.

You don't mean I need to see an actual psychiatrist? Psychologist, a therapist, you need to talk about what's going on inside your head.

But that's the thing, I muttered. Everything has speeded up to such a point I feel as if it's all inside my head

and I can't get away from none of it. Then talk it out, she said. Or in, I actually found myself laughing.

The Long Nervous Breakdown: Take Two

I was married with a lovely daughter and endeavoring to live the life the way one is to live it as a middle-class American in nineteen-eighty-four.

I hadn't written poetry in years and my quixotic twenties filled with Transcendentalism, Tao, and Dostoevsky

seemed a million light-years in some other’s past. I even had attempted Christianity to fill some void but that's another story.

My therapist was asking me just who I wished to be and not what others wanted me to be. I didn't have a clue.

That's when she asked me why I gave up on Thoreau, which somehow came into our conversation half-an-hour ago.

He seems impractical, I said, or that's what others say, I further said. And what is it you say, she asked.

I couldn't say, I said. Then go and ask, she says, as fifty minutes is annunciated by an unembellished little bell.

The Long Nervous Breakdown: Take One

Now was moving faster than belief could cover it. No internal clock could keep up with this timeless emptiness growing like a grander canyon.

I was at the threshold of a precipice without a single object to hold on to. And the wind was growing stronger

with every passing building I was seeing sitting on the passenger's impassive side. It was either me or my belief.

We were somewhere near the border when I cried out. Stop the car! I have to get out right away!

She looked at me like I was crazy. I'm going crazy, I was crying. So she stopped the car and I at last began to tell it like it is.

Cardinal: First Epistle to the Birds

You are entering the woo way—be aware. There is no limit to the speed of light except the one your gravity is giving it—so lighten up. Verbs without borders.

Even conditioning is as natural as the water in a mountain stream where rocks are slowly rounded. Take two of these and see yourself in the morning. As god is my witness, I will swim in the ocean again.

The only authentic voice is that of one's intent. Through the mystical cloud of unknowing into the wild blue yonder. My oracle used to be a database but now is being.

Psychological deconstruction—mystical reassimilation—absolute transportation. No person, no division, no thing. Individual, universal, subjective.

I'm still adjusting to the fact that all is in my consciousness and no one isn't I. If it's not experienced in consciousness, it's fiction: even Nisargadatta's words must be confirmed. Imagine what lies are spread as news!

It's not that almost everything is a conspiracy as much as almost everything is unproved. Experientially. There's one fact. I am. Everything else is a lie attempting to convince I'm not.

Where was I before fiction walked in? Belief is not being. Deuces are wild. One only knows I am. The bus stops here. That absolute transportation to deep sleep is not in my job description; the best i can 'do' is deliver my self to bed.

I’d rather be wrong interpreting this experience than right in any other way. “Capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”: Keats' negative capability.

Not thoughtful but experiential; not conditioning but being; not positive reinforcement but negative capability. Much like hiking a mountain is actually leaving the ties of civilization behind; not ascending heights as much as surrendering gravity

Maps are essential, but proving that the map is accurately reflecting the actual terrain is the very next step. When you meet the map on the way, put it in your back-pocket. Hiking was a great guru of mine.

My first therapist suggested I return to Henry David Thoreau despite my buying the hype he’s impractical. Because I loved the natural. Later, my second therapist suggested I start hiking mountains because I loved Thoreau. Then I stopped hiking mountains because I love a greater height. I’m going hiking in the mountains this summer.

It's not as much leaving spacetime as forgetting it. 'I don't know' are the only magic words. First, learn your fractals. To stop going further is going back to the beginning. More hiking wisdom.

Either god is good. And thus, you. Or god is impossible. And you don't exist. It really is your call. Nisargadatta says his life flows between one and nothing, did not choose a side. Love and wisdom.

Your prophecy is manifesting as we speak. My prophecy intends its own word. Are you experiencing? Self-awareness is the reflection of pure unknowable awareness in consciousness. Self-awareness is one definition of lucid being—where awareness is the supreme unknown and mind is the reflector

Self-awareness (lucid being, enlightenment) is the mind-reflection of pure awareness (absolute unknown) in experiential being. Do not mistake no-mind for mindless.

When I was 21, my girlfriend’s mother said I had no ambition, and I took it as a compliment. To me, Richard Nixon was the epitome of ambition. At least I wasn't him.

Beyond all good and bad is intent. Whether a belief is good or bad is not anything intended. If it's manifested itself, on some level, you need it. Everything you have, you need. What comes next is what you want. In other words, accept this moment completely. You needed it. Stop denying that fact.

Bliss is the crux. Not believing a belief is a belief is not that unbelievable. Realizational (enlightening) intent is Tao. Evolution is the natural way. Being is not nothing. As the absolute unknown is, I am.

The Undertow of Mind

Again, the docks. Again, the docks crack the emptiness of the river, as if the sky was hit by something little on the way

and stars begin to circle overhead like cartoon boats in a stunning regatta. Not a boat is tied up to these docks as yet.

They're like a crossword puzzle waiting for some words to people them. But as sure as if you build it, boats will come.

One will sound like some jet engine hydroplaning on the water, a cigarette boat. Rum Runner, Rum Runner, going faster miles an hour.

It smuggles noise into the silence. In the summer, everyone is drinking it until inebriation is descending like the embers falling to the beach

from fireworks I saw once in Ogunquit, paid for by George Bush the First, who ran his cigarette boat out from Walker Point that summer.

The sea knows how to deal with big bangs though. Being silence, waves come crashing to the shore to know they are the silence.

That will shut them up. And in the lucid undertow of mind, the ocean knows the sea.

1st Postcard to My Child

The universe begins and somewhere 

light is turning into matter 

like water freezing into ice. 

That is the way it will appear 

to this which has solidified 

but mass is moved within by light 

and so the evolutionary 

process of the mind begins 

to lucidly reflect the light 

I am.

Cherry Blossoming I Am

I'm waiting on the cherry blossoms, which gives their famed impermanence a backwards spin.

But this year spring is slow, developing in motion slower than desire intends or memory is remembering.

And so it's May already, not every tree is blossoming, and even ones that are, are blossoming sporadically

and look like far-flung stars seen through a mist of a greenless wintergreen breath.

Looking from this point of view, I see that even nothing doesn't last, although it lingers in each stop of breath

and permeates the daily happening with deepest sleep. But that's subjective to some other transportation.

Right now, I am the cherry blossom, slow in learning what I am but incandescent in the natural lucid being I'm intended

as a cherry blossoming to be, delicately universal and singularly nuclear in knowing the unknown.