in the amusement park of life we don’t take the rides, the rides take us

Q: What is your original face before your parents were born?

A: No face now, no face then.

Earlier I wrote — “the peace that passeth understanding can’t be understood.”
What’s worse, it can’t be experienced.
Then what, we may ask, is it good for?
And, of course, the answer is — it’s good for Nothing.

so simple, yet so seeming hard to accept:
there is nothing that is not It

spring 1967 –
one night in the kitchen
two friends stand talking when . . .
words stopping the world.

emptiness . . .

light . . .

laughter . . .

words . . .

the world beginning again,
one night in the kitchen.

for GG

the peace that passeth understanding can’t be understood

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

(with thanks to Mei Yao-Ch’en)

apparent contradiction . . . using words to end words

what can be said about the Unsayable?

there is only the One, which, as it happens, is empty

the Unsayable speaks for itself

the Unsayable when spoken is silence

since one can only be (is) and not observe the One,
nothing can be said about it, not even this

peace passing understanding is nothing of this world . . . and . . . is this world

peace in living doesn’t look like anything other than what is