The patterns of the light overnight snow,
enhanced by the track of a lone feline,
etched itself in my artist's mind as I walked
the now routine block to the Zendo.

Under a western sky awash with dawn,
crested winter jays sang a trumpet chorus of ecstacy,
and my heart also joined in graditude
for the gift of this presence.

How immeasurably stretches this inner silence,
causeless, formless, absolutely free.
Lying so humbly beneath all existance,
supporting all phenomeon,
it is my only true love.

The knowing that I am only a door
frees me from believing
there is any specialness.

The knowing that I am only a mirror
frees me from believing
there is any other.

The knowing that I am only a thought
frees me from believing
I will actually die.

Here, I find my peace.

And the knowing that you are no different
frees me
to be Love.

Letting my heart feel,
like stretching in yoga,
means: to embrace (with self-love)
the pain of being known and vulnerable.

Admitting (especially to myself) my 'mistakes',
the 'revelations of my own foolishness',
means: no longer living any commitment
to escaping the re-sculpting
of this spirits journey.

Therefore, I now 'practice yielding'
(all former ways of knowing
before the naked face of truth,
revealed quite simply as what IS).

As this natural surrender to emptying progresses,
I find my heart becomes ever lighter,
carrying fewer burdens of egoic self-perpetuation.

And thus,
a far greater joyousness is awakening,
being always more and more freed of intense longings,
it quietly or wildly dances (no difference) the Now, the Tao,
embracing both my own birth-less/deathlessness,
and mortality.

On my knees vacuuming
the bird feathers left by the cat
in the middle of my yoga mat,
I strikes me how much I enjoy
simpleness.

Sweeping the floor,
watching clouds,
walking,
making my bed....
all so truly satisfying,
so ordinary,
and so unconflicted.

In these days of challenge,
I am profoundly grateful
for such humble moments.

Deepening the self-disciplining....
Through the doorway of ever subtler presence,
everything becomes purification ritual,
everything is recognized as 'the Way'.
Surrounding ones being,
from birth to death,
the daily rhythms....
waking, washing, watering,
walking, working,
eating, cleaning, smiling,
embracing, loving,
even reacting, rejecting, retreating....
all is included,
all is allowed.
The only question is
"Who is this I who is this I?"

The impeccable understand
there is no escape from facing this.
No matter when or where it is finally accepted,
'not two-ness' unifies eternity.

What is the merit of practice, of discipline?
Choosing to accept the invitation, the opportunity,
this one rose early and joined the monks at the neighboring Zendo
for the morning zazen sitting.

Waking and walking the body on frigid winter mornings is definitely good for it,
as is also sitting it on a cushion facing a wall for an hour.
Hooking the mind chatter onto breathwaves is calming, clarifying, and insightful...
just as chanting monotone recitations of ancestral masters
extends my sense of the living interconnected presence into distant past vastness,
naturally deepening the awareness of just how infinite
the life I exist within actually is.

But the simple act of bowing is particularly potent.
Why? Perhaps it is just the simplicity of recognizing,
in such an act,
the absolute equality of each and every form of beingness.

I am given to see that such equality is truly the essence of Love.

No denials allowed now.
By grace,
the surrender to
actually feeling
the price of a lie
within our separated lives
is intended to be painful...
to be awakening.....
life transforming.....
because a lie lived as if it were truth is,
not just 'like hell',
it is self-created hell.

Therefore,
to escape such isolation and blindness,
practice self-honesty impeccably.
It steadily deepens its lovers
beyond personal
seduction, self-deception.

By knowing myself, I know you.
Because I know the place in me where I am shallow,
I can see and accept the shallowness in you.
Because I know my own tendency to narcissism,
I can recognize and overlook the narcissism in you.
Because I have struggled to learn to love myself despite my own pettiness,
I am able to find a smile to offer in response to yours.
And to the degree I have been able to feel my own pain,
I can feel yours.
My teachers on this journey are present no matter what direction I face,
and irregardless of the disguises I attempt.
And since I have found escape from myself impossible,
I no longer try.
Instead, to stop the running,
I have studied compassion as a practice.
It teaches me peace in the midst of war,
shows me the joy laying under the sorrow,
and blesses me with a growing sense of interconnectedness to all existence.
But its greatest gift is the disappearing of the fear of non-existence.
For herein I have found the freedom to Love.
Even myself, and even you.
How could it be otherwise?
Follow the ecstasy into pure silence and you will see.
By knowing yourself, you will know me.

By doing nothing
when I am awash
with old hooks jerking at me...
this practice lets me see
beneath my own surface...
confirming the steadily growing
totally free quietness,
and the release
of impermanent identity.