Notes to myself—August 2013
To say “forty years” now is no stretch, saying Buddha’s
Name, inside and out, steadily sporadically, at times spontaneously, one way or
the other all these years, as so this morning along empty streets, nembutsu
readily rides each breath through to release, leads place specific into this
body-moment that leads to the unknown next, all held and all moved, single
breath on single breath carrying living voice homeward.
My Dad used to speak of the “second wind” that long-distance
runners experience, when body overtakes will and running turns into a kind of
riding, a place of effortless confidence in something other—today it feels like
that might feel, in it for the duration, never alone, somehow easy.
**
I’m American in the sense that I have no definitive link to
any soil other than this, no family memory of any “mother land” outside North
America. Whence then, the powerful influence of nembutsu ?
**
Reading selections from Albert Saijo’s, Outspeaks to the poetry workshop at the jail last week, the
men loved the power and simplicity of his work.
Some have said of Saijo, an American original by my way of
thinking, that he always looked both ways, then went straight ahead—by “both”
they must have meant inside and out.
Saijo went from the camps into WW II, from the war back into
his country. He traveled it. He chewed peyote, as I recall, sat Zen and fasted.
In later years, he lived on the edge of a volcano (so as not to take up too
much room). And although he eschewed literary recognition, he was a writer by
vocation—all caps and dashes, no other punctuation. In his own words, he wanted to be a “field
preacher,” in the way of John Muir’s father.
And it works. I mean, I can only imagine a field preacher,
but Saijo’s words are anything but indecisive—he was a slight man, small of
stature and photos suggest, quiet. But his words, the thinking and passion that
pushes them, are large and clear—no equivocation here—he knew where he was
headed, and that’s where he went.
Look out, look in—then keep going. Kind of like a life of
nembutsu.
**
Once a motel, the b&b sits off the main road below
grade, under trees, adjacent wide spread ranch-like work buildings. Plentiful
green and blue, a pleasant place, where water running through the walls signals
the neighbors showering, and each closed door resonates through several units
either side. But it’s quiet. And a slight adjustment to the vertical blinds on
the sliding door, lights the room with morning, lets the ordered shades of
beige pateo stones just outside extend a sense of comfort and calm, both sides
across the sill.
I remember a journal entry by Cid Corman, ex-pat American
poet living in Japan in the 1960’s, capturing the moments of an entire day as
he sat overlooking the garden space outside his kitchen. He observed, and he
wrote his life, the day unfolding in shifting tones of light.
And comments by William Stafford, on the way it is for him
in writing. Not writing poems, but writing, the active engagement of giving
oneself over to the process, poem or prose.
The difference between the two for Stafford is a matter of
signals; neither content, nor form, so much as certain signals from writer to
reader that a poem is underway; the lack of such, signaling prose—grammar,
syntax, line length.
And for Stafford, the poem is not just about signals sent by
the poet, but certain signals the poet receives and transcribes—a poem then is
not merely personal statement or
personal expression; at its best a poem speaks to, speaks of, source
rather than sender.
This subtle shift demands of the writer certain careful but
easy handed attentiveness to his or her own intentions in order to determine
whether the nature of engagement is prose or poetry, or both, and to send it
out as best they can, as such.
The ambiguity here rightly defines the writing way Stafford
enjoyed, as a humble one.
**
Shinran, prolific writer, unwavering in the certainty of the
source of his liberation, at age 86, cites Honen: “ ‘Other Power means that
no working is true working.’ ‘Working’ is the calculating heart and mind of
each practicer. As long as one possesses a calculating mind, one endeavors in
self-power. You must understand fully the working of self-power.”
Thoreau: “Good writing as well as good acting will be
obedience to conscience. There must not be a particle of will or whim mixed
with it. If we can listen, we shall hear. By reverently listening to the inner
voice, we may reinstate ourselves on the pinnacle of humanity.” 1-26-1841 And:
“We are constantly invited to be what we are, as something worthy,
and noble. I never waited but for myself to come around; none ever detained me,
but I lagged or tagged after myself.”
2-3-1841
**
Awareness, inner and outer, careful listening, learning and
consideration. Appreciation for all received; for the continued receiving,
wonder and praise. And the personal determination to attend the quietude
required to continue this way of humility and gratitude.
Borderless, boundless, all and ever-inclusive.
Every question, any question, indicative of too much
self--Namuamidabutsu.
