Granted a shattering glimpse of crystalline quiet early,
I came to understand it late.

Finding no one to explain the Unexplainable,
I kept a different kind of quiet;
drifted along some usual ways –
school, jobs, career, a run in public life.

Now and then, in a seeming desert wander, would peace descend –
alleviating for a while the dis-satisfaction of dis-ease.

These days I dwell inside my cottage in a large and fertile plain.
Through my doors a river runs. I do not interfere.

Without reason I study poetic lines revealing Way;
living unfolding within a gift of ease.

(with thanks to Wang Wei)

if your boat is empty, nothing in the world can oppose you on the river of living

with thanks to Thomas Merton and Chuang Tzu

giving up giving up anger (and sorrow and…)
seems to be doing a job
giving up anger was supposed to do

morning white highway noise,
once made an anxious beginning,
now lulls me awake

at some moment, perhaps, we stop protesting the wayness of things

All idleness in the back patio,
away from the world for a while,
poetry, a cigar, a pot of tea.

One moment empties into the next…
the Protestant Ethic has left this life.

as emotions lose transcendent import, we can relax:
sadness is just sadness, joy just joy,
no avoiding one, no clinging to the other,
they come and go as they will — as do all the rest

No longer concerned with place in the world,
time relaxes, days fill with quiet mystery.
Everyday life unburdened, cooking, once a chore,
loses its tedium. I cook and eat at home.

In the garden a sapling soaks after planting.
I sit in the radiance of things as they are.

no fruit of hard work,
but a gift from elsewhere:
absence deepening in presence

(with thanks to Mei Yao-Ch’en)

pushing the river does not effect the outcome of the voyage; it’s just tiring

ease in living accompanies acceptance of life’s finitude

dwelling in ease neither entails nor precludes an easy life

at some point life may disappoint us into the realization
that it turns out only as it does, not as we wish –
afterwards, ease may appear

long time coming: the pleasure of company and the pleasure of solitude become one

Growing older, my idleness perfects itself.
Morning I drink tea, afternoon gaze into empty clouds
drifting so slowly by they seem to last forever.

Reading poems, notebook at hand,
I capture one thought, then another
as they disappear into a silence that has no name.

Tranquil in this valley town, I savor passing time.

(with thanks to Po Chü-i)