March Meditations

The secret life of nembutsu

The plane’s television monitor tells us

we’re passing over northern Canada, toward Calgary,

while outside, below, the white sheet stretches

well beyond what any eye might imagine,

what any words might clearly say.

Buddha’s teaching of nembutsu, the mindfulness

of utterance,

is like this too: no need at all to add anything

—saying itself, deep and whole

in and through the silent expanse of the heart—

only listening will do

Namuamidabutsu,

Namuamidabutsu

**

What do poets do?

Light struggles through tangled shadows.

In waiting branches, dark acacia leaves chill,

still to the windless morning’s entreaty to the new spring

come quietly between grey rain days

that leave the last of that which only they can bring.

Cold Mountain, the poet-monk, tells us

similar scenes appear over and again;

it’s what we do with them

that differs.

**

Certain mysteries

Clear blue, the Saturday sky lifts

from the crisp green hills,

arching invisibly over the roof top,

waiting, watching,

a lingering presence supposed, but not known,

not seen;

perhaps then, lifting

simply lifting…

**

End March

The day unfolds utterly absent uncertainty, each morsel

of air-buoyed water running its inevitable course, specific

to conditions within the collective spread called clouds

that span a breadth of hilltop some three miles in length.

I sit watching this, faltering in a mind a’swirl with ambiguity

at what the weather might bring, what that might mean,

while the day simply continues its quiet way, delivering all

it has to give.

In search of those still practicing, Bill Porter,

once known as Red Pine, roamed near-empty crevices

of modern China, and reports:

every adept he met followed some regimen

of chanting and meditation, morning and evening--our practice,

our teachers say, brings us to nembutsu, song, twice a day,

the straightforward gathering of body sound and sense,

turned in the direction of full completion

of living gratitude.

**

Best friends

Placed in a small black vase

in the corner on the alter

below the framed scroll,

flowers with white petals

and yellow centers

call into the chill and dim light…

Hearing this implies

a world alive,

the resonant pulse of wholeness

linked and woven,

the tiniest thread

a call of fully extending family,

a world of best friends…