In my youth I did my time
Doing strict religious discipline
A whole decade dedicated to mindfulness
And right livelihood.
And in the several decades since I’ve done
All that on and off again, from time to time.
But now my discipline is different
It’s the discipline of do-nothing
The wu wei of effortless action
More like mindlessness
Than effortful mindfulness.
What does it involve? Nothing!
Too simple you say,
And that’s the point exactly!
Like a cloud drifting through an open sky
Neither born nor dying
Simply manifesting
Into something
From nothing.
(9/16/26)
Somewhere at this very moment
The sun is rising
And somewhere the sun setting.
Somewhere at this very moment
Someone is taking their first breath
And someone their last.
Each moment thus contains a whole
Which is beyond our experience
Beyond our life
With it’s own ups and downs
Beginning and ends.
A baby cries, then laughs and cries again.
Both are essential to its sense of self
And its ability to reach out to others.
Children, parents, friends and lovers
Hear “no” much more often than “yes”
Because yes requires no words.
Everything we do is dependent on practice
Even the effortless.
Sun rises and sets
Simultaneously in this very moment
For each of us,
But it’s what happens between
That matters most.
(10/19/25)
(“The Particle In The Wave”, 2018, original encaustic)
Down to Zero
In the great equation of Life
Everything eventually cancels out
As it naturally balances
And leaves us down to zero.
From the perspective of static
The dynamic is the illusion
From the perspective of dynamic
The static is the illusion.
Buddhism with its notion of a final Nirvana
Takes the former
Taoism with its effortlessly flowing Wu-Wei
Takes the latter.
That is the East, while in the West
This paradoxical duality is expressed
Succinctly by quantum physics
As the wave and particle nature of light.
The reality is always, of course, different
Than what we think, when we’re at zero
And left with what it means to be alive;
In work or play, depending on our view.
(7/21/25)
The archer shooting his arrow without hesitating,
the musician effortlessly improvising,
the singers seamlessly blending,
the speaker clearly enunciating.
It's not about being lazy or passive
or being forceful or combative.
Nothing unnecessary or artificial,
it's about being spontaneous and natural,
coming from an inner elemental source...
like water finding its course.
Yon I see a stream
That dancing down dwells in now
And all my thoughts seem
To beauty of Nature bow
And flow with the flow of Tao.
____________________
Tanka |20.03.2025| Nature
Note: Woo-Wei: Taoist philosophy meaning non-action or refraining from acting contrary to Nature and dwelling in now. It is going against the grain of things.
Tao clears mind myriad
Hears gurgled stream trickle
Rejuvenating ease of river
Impels an outlook simple
Verdant steppes imperial
Embrace ouroboros cycle
Joined tail to mouth control
Overcomes chaotic combat
Yin Yan hug in completeness
Temple of self empty vessel
Approaches each hour in Wu Wei
Jaws of serpent ensure return
Iteration eats its tail
Tadpole twirled stronghold
Unhurried harmonious spiral
February finding out
Flitting's like floating
only with
the least amount
and most
ineffectual
intention.
Intention
without
clarity
without
conviction
without
direction
without
without.
Each waft
a contravention.
Somersault of
summer
butterflies,
but better:
butterflits...
Plummer salts
of Winter,
snowfalls
but better:
snowflits...
Though flitting's
altogether fitting
if near-enough
to Surrender
is your kind of
Splendor.
You can roll me
You can smoke me
You can put me out
You can roach me
You can toke me
You can cook me down
In the morning and the evening
Afternoon and night
Take me any where you go
Even on a hike
You can bake me
You can hate me
You can love me with a passion
You can smell me
You can sell me
You can put me in a jar
In the middle of the night
Heading for the kitchen
Ill be sitting there
With my stem in the middle
I bring danger
I like strangers
I'm often out of reach
I'm green, from the ground
I'll never bring you down
With your friends by your side
Guitars and a fire
Ill be by your side making everything
A little brighter
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