(“Original Sin”, 2016, original pen and ink, acrylic and oil)
Buddhists don’t talk of original sin
The way Christians do,
But they both talk about the same thing;
That in the beginning there was light
And the Word, and the missing of the mark.
For Buddhists this “sin” is basic ignorance,
The ignoring of who and what we are.
For Buddhists experience is divided
Into two basic categories;
Enlightened, or Nirvana, and
Deluded, or Samsara.
Nirvana is peace.
Samsara is suffering.
The experience of each are thus polar opposites,
But the simple original sin,
The fundamental deviance,
Is that Samsara arose from the desire
To improve Nirvana, our original nature.
So Samsara is Nirvana plus desire,
The desire to personalize it,
Put our mark of identity on what was
Already always perfect.
To extend the cross cultural metaphor
You could say we wanted to give it
The mark of the beast.
And that’s how we lost the light.
(8/16/26)
By Phan Tan Hai
Curl your legs and kick the coffin—
it’s time for the chanting to begin.
You can’t just lie there forever,
listening to heaven and earth fall silent.
Try to hear the last lines of poetry
before you return to the realm of no-birth;
your body scattered as dust across the sky—
sentient or not, who can say.
Forty years without sleep,
eyes wide in astonishment;
the wind flips through pages of history,
cold across the sky of Kinh Bac.
Forty years pretending to be deaf,
writing Suoi Nguon in the marketplace;
words blooming on every page,
glittering with the colors of impermanence.
— Written in March 2016 to bid farewell to the poet Kinh Bac (Le Dinh Vien - Sau Du), editor of Suoi Nguon Magazine, Hue Quang Sino-Vietnamese Translation Center, who passed away on March 4, 2016 in Saigon.
By Phan Tan Hai
Forty years like a dream—
shaking off the dust of distant roads;
a faint trace still lingers,
tea-scent deep upon the lashes.
More than sixty passing years,
books read as countless as forests;
once hearing thunder split the peaks,
the mountains broke—fragrance filled the sky.
Returning, hearing the wind breathe,
sweeping through lifetimes of ignorance;
each page of Nguyen Tho’s words
stops mid-flight, as birds listen to the sutra.
Long miles walked without weariness,
the clouds of Tu Luc still drifting;
copying sutras in mist-like lines,
fragrance steeped into the slender strokes.
— March 2017. Respectfully offered to Venerable Nguyen Tho Thich Tu Luc on the fortieth anniversary of his ordination.
By Phan Tan Hai
The teacher taught: look into mind, no words appear—
in the wordless dawn, sunlight speaks.
Ancients and future ones smile like a dream;
who strikes the bell and steals a character today?
The teacher taught: rings, bracelets, ornaments—
all are one sky of non-duality, pure gold in nature.
To stir the mind of distinction is to drift away
into the vast waves of three realms, six paths.
The teacher taught: a hundred thousand cakes
are but one invisible dough.
Liking and disliking open countless worlds;
seeing the unborn mind is the unborn.
The teacher taught: this world is a play—
today this role, tomorrow another.
Suffering, like the great ocean of waves,
is still one nature of water, never apart.
The teacher taught: impermanence in all worlds—
to see it as real is delusion.
Do not say “is” or “is not”;
in wordless stillness, one does not err.
The teacher taught: emptiness is form—
like a hand turned over, palm to back.
To see nature is to see no self-nature;
hearing the bell, one sees the Dharma.
("First Light", 2006, original oil)
Samsara’s wheel of Life,
Wheel of ignorance and suffering
Is but an illusion,
A mirage of a vast collective
Of veiled ignorant minds,
Like a spinning projection
Of hope and fear,
Above the true wheel.
So what is this true wheel
That turns at the base of reality,
In the heart of each of us?
Let’s just say
It’s not something
That can ever be named,
Yet something actual and changeless
Just waiting to be discovered.
(3/10/26)
Here we are
Each of us
In a world
Of our own
Trying hard
To connect
But failing
Again and again.
The solution
You know
Is to simply
Let it all
Go
And let
whatever arises
Simply be.
Is this illusion
The Zenness
Of being
Or it is just
Another attempt
At relevance
In a world
Of illusion.
(10/15/25)
Nonsectarian
(for Charlie)
A friend asked me recently if I’m still a Buddhist
And I replied no
Without telling him I’m beyond labels.
To me Buddhism and Christianity are no different
In being just different expressions of dharma,
Dharma being Sanskrit for truth.
Today I heard a Buddhist prayer
Of wishing to become the kind of being
Who makes everyone happy to just see.
And I laughed out loud
And thought, “Hell yeah!”
I want to be that kind of person.
And not to just make them happy,
But to laugh, and play, relax and
Loosen the chains
That bind their heart.
I know I’m not that person today,
But I thought of someone who was,
And how all over the world
Those chains are now loosening
And people are feeling strong and free
Even as they cry in grief.
(9/13/25)
civilrights/votingrights/democracyreform
update on communication of opinion with senator warren
constitutional means and measure as provided in description of property
antitrust boredom
petrol
the contemporary lobbying for additional police
in policy writing equates
to the value of ignition of petrol
rather than the clerical error correction
of a homeless person becoming american
that prepaid property of the citizen is in trial
as evidence at the moment
exiting a sealed indictment for all
of those who accepted the transaction
ill gotten gains
from the ill in the streets
knowingly watching americans die
while issuance of wealth was described
in due process
allowance of interpretation of placement
of individual case by case of medical need
present day has concluded process of intelligent quotient ability
of laws to enforce death certificates as an economic
recovery interest in the mortality of exposure sector
of mathematical finite means for speech.
civil rights as commodity?
#civilrights #commodity #zen #buddhism
(“Mind’s Eye Merit Badge” #67, 2020, original oil)
A Möbius Strip
Mind and nature of mind
So close and yet so different
Not like night and day different
But earth and sky
Not two sides of the same thing
But opposites
One an is, the other an isn’t
One an illusion, the other real
This is how truth and falsehood exist
Like an object and its shadow
But the twist of course
Is that it’s the opposite of what we think
(what we think after all being a product of mind,
and mind, ultimately, just a mental construct)
One isn’t, the other is
But it only is, the lack of the other…
(12/4/24)
Skinny in youth thick in later days
Champion for truth despite delays
As a late bloomer in thought process
Born to a baby boomer and so blessed
Believed in God but didn’t get much church
Felt so odd how the church clicks work
Rather open to explore other fuchsia faiths
Went to the mosque just couldn’t be great
And with Buddhism she felt all a glow
But she still identified as a Christian so
Perhaps it’s true train up a child
But her training was unique and mild
For she recalled Bootsy’s Rubber Band
And Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder on hand
Music was the church in her life
She was a cool nerd never a wife
A poet who sucked at math in her head
But like a mom stretched a penny till it’s dead
Had many jobs, but a mom and proud to be
Not afraid of death for it is purple peace
Step into splintered sunlight
broken beams flash
across bare, silhouetted flesh.
Above
Father-Sun forever scintillates,
a deep and ancient ember,
giving ceaselessly to all
wanting nothing in return.
The trees, they dance
in verdant splendor,
leaning lazily, they sigh
with utter contentment.
Their leaves, a chorus
of flapping green,
each one moving to its own rhythm,
closely listening to the wind sing.
White stars illuminate my eyes
and echo through my soul.
Vibrations shudder down my spine,
utterly with rapture so
cosmic and cyclopean,
spinning through the wheel-vortex
of my open amethyst crown.
And with sweet natural bliss, at last,
under holy bodhi tree of life --
copper-domed and ancient,
grown hoary and sere
through countless millennia --
my buddha-mind will yet arise,
through the heavens,
past the skies,
and slowly gaze
with wisdom eyes
upon the all-expansive Whole.
This worldly plane is just a school,
a dream where all is mind.
Be present, aware, and most of all,
compassionate and kind.
For everything in this world is one,
the Universe is inside us.
If pure of heart, we seek our truth,
the Universe shall guide us
Firing blanks,
i missed nothing.
‘Twas all for naught.
Putting you above me
Your feet at my head
Is the natural thing to do
When your mastery
Is revealed.
But it’s all relative
As you put others above you and
Others put themselves below me.
That’s why it’s called
The wheel of life.
When I step back
And my emotions settle
I see that no one is The Master
But that each can instead
Be the appropriate messenger.
(9/1/24)
I shaved my head
and wore a robe
the mountain pass
I found at last
grew thin alas
but fat I got
on nature's lot
her sounds were not
my thoughtless strobe
though I was dead
to the mountain's mass
in me she saw
I knew not what
my feet grew raw
I found my past
a timely flaw
the mountain pass
my life aghast
and all was for
a little more
though I was dead
I shaved my head
("Mind's Eye", 2017, original encaustic)
Nature of Mind
This state, not the external one
Of time and place, but the natural state
That knows no in or out, one or many,
Is our true home. And yet we wander
Endlessly searching for what is already here.
What is this state?
Open, welcoming, forgiving, peaceful,
Without causes and conditions
Thus unborn and undying,
The simply spacious nature of our mind.
Relax now in this state, this home
This very moment
To embody its changeless nature,
And so renewed,
To share the joy.
(1/15/24)
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.