A white Rose of Sharon Wide open like the third eye of Wisdom Stares at the morning star Mugunghwa / The Rose of Sharon, Korea’s National Flower The Poem appeared first in “The Fires of Spring” by Rayn Roberts 2002 All Buddhist traditions agree that as the morning star rose in the sky in the early morning, […]
Category: Buddhism
Hitting the Wall
A wall in a monastery—call it meditation Is that wall in Berlin That was and now is not, Or the Great Wall in China That is and once was not, They begin and end in mind. And if the universe is mind It’s a wall whose stones Break into laughter When we say they are […]
The Voice
If I spoke from the heart and you could hear You could ride the sound Back to the beginning and see you who you are If I spoke from the heart, my tears would be a river Running to the sea An ocean of sweetest water If I spoke from the heart, my joyful laughter […]
A Reckoning
There must be meaning behind a will, there must be healing. Night deepens but I cannot sleep, a lily pond glows drowsy koi floating by a moonlit walk in the park. Is there a reason to feel the loss of so many I never knew, did I help herd them to slaughter my twisted heart pounding […]
The Tree
Buddha before enlightenment starved bony looking into the moment for a way out the joy and pain the universal law at the center of the chaos in and around him knowing we all wait under a spreading tree the return of turtles setting eggs in sand salmon roiling upriver to spawn sea lions […]
Buseoksa Moon South Korea
There’s a bus to nowhere, somewhere I think is home.
I feel the half moon human mind moving to fullness
clearly asking, “Will you stay with the solemn monks
Or return to the maddening city life of hell in Seoul?”
Mother
The need to return to origin True as the need of home Rush of red shoreline kelp The coupling of crabs, flash Of Garibaldi in tidal pools But a reason for rock foam Breaker gull sky– unknown. Each salty breath brings me To being in you, Uterus of Life and Death, great Mother You hold […]
Buddhism, a Brief Introduction
Sit down. Shut up. Meditate. Cut the Crap.
Any Day Now
Nothing you were to think, feel, know, remains intact The givens all gone, the body unravels The soul does not exist: where spirit seemed to breathe A great hole deepens, a sea of liquid sound spills in Pure as God’s voice, moonlight-shoals and starry reefs In vacancies of time too wide to navigate, the soul […]
What the Smiles of the Buddhas Mean
Smiles east to west? No. Buddhas, temples Flowers, candles, incense Outer symbols of inner realities! The smile from the center of the heart Shines in all directions, outward… The Poem appeared first in “The Fires of Spring” a book of poems by Rayn Roberts 2002