lekmo

Gone

2006-04-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

I burned the stick of incense you gave me. When I got up from sitting, I noticed that the ash had not fallen as it usually does, but it remained in a straight column, and there was a prayer written on it. When I bent closer to read it again, my breath caused the delicate ash to fall. Gone.

So much of life is like this, no?

I have loved you all my life. But when I look there is no life, no I, no you, only love. I would never say this out loud. You are the only person I know who understands this.

The garden is coming along. I spend a little time out there every night, down on my knees, with my hands in the dirt. This effort will turn into flowers, pumpkins, vines and ferns. This energy will shoot up as bamboo taller than the house. I do it for you.

I love you so much and yet I know, our laughter, our friendship, our movement through time and space--all of that which carries the prayer of this love will one day fall, leaving nothing in its wake.

Knowing this, I am fearless. I, who flinch at a handshake will gladly die to feel your breath on my ashen form, reading the prayer one last time before it falls.

Gone.

Hiatus

2006-04-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

I have been off. If you knew me better, you would not be surprised. Even I don’t know me better, but I know this: I was off and I am back. This is yet another temporary state. Just more wind, passing through the grass.

I am busy. And lazy. Why do people only notice the busy? This astounds me.

It is raining today. It hailed today. It has been sunny today. The wind blew. All of these are "today." Oh.

I saw my friend. He was distant. Even in his distance, he is more present than most people. If you laid on top of me, you could not be this present. Maybe you could, but I could not experience you as that present. A different matrix.

I asked my Teacher, "How are you?" He said, "Who knows?" and laughed.

Hiya

2006-01-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

Two teenage boys in my kitchen, cooking home made pasta, cleaning the kitchen, singing Broadway hits at the top of their lungs. I might not survive this, but I have had a Vicodan and half a vallium. Even in my exhaustion, I feel their good intention and their affection for each other, for pasta and for me. It's like a dream. The pug is eating his dog food, because they have sprinkled parmesan cheese on it. The curley haired one says, "I always do that at home."

Funny how to live in this body for the next several days (weeks?) while it feels like I have woken up in some other woman's body.. one less flexible and more ancient. What are these bones trying to tell me?

One more day of teaching, then Monday I will sleep in. Then I have to kick in and finish 150 more slides and 6 hours of ISD currculum before I leave for Chicago on Wednesday.. or is it Thursday?

Hi to all of you. Hi. May you be well.

Oh, Now I See

2006-01-17T17:14:00.000-08:00

In my last poste I pondered what it would take to make me give up alligience to a few of the more stupid things I do that continuously aid my self demise (not that self, the other one).

Well, ahem.

Now I know. Friday, I was shopping for a blanket to add to the bed of a guest arriving for a Saturday dharma event. This errand was sandwiched between food shopping, cooking and a re-write of the program for the event. These things were sandwiched between work, of which there are signifant amounts of late. You know the story..

I saw one particulary soft blanket and imagined how my guest might feel, all snuggled warm and cozy beneath it, and reached out to feel it. In the moment of reaching, the muscles in my lower back constricted in the most unbelievable pain.

I managed to get to a chair to sit down and I called a friend, who, fortunately, happened to be at his desk. We talked and I eventually decided I would give up on shopping, drive home and rest a little.

It took me almost a half hour to walk to my car. The pain was increasing with each step. I am a pro at pain. I have had a chronic illness that casues pain in my muscles and joints for nearly a decade now and I think I have done well with just continuing with it.

But when I finally got in the car, got my right leg in and started to put my left leg in, I realized my left leg was not, by any conventional means, going anywhere at all. It simply would not move, and my back was in such a state that I wasn't sure I could reach and lift it. Not only was I not going to drive home, I wasn't even going to get to the hospital on my own power.

I called my brother who said he would come immediately, but that he was about 45 minutes' drive from where I was parked. I remembered then that an old friend, a physician from San Francisco, was in town for the event and so I dialed his number. Between gasps and shouts, I managed to tell him more or less where I was and he agreed to come.

Half hour later, they both arrived and my doctor friend lifted and poked and nudged and pronounced that it was serious enough, but simple. We went to the hospital, where I gratefully accepted a shot of morophene and both vallium and two kinds of pain relievers.

At home, my doctor friend proceeded to instruct me in how to sit, stand, walk, sleep and a few things I will not detail here. He laid out in no uncertain terms what kinds of exercises I will now do ("consider" I think he said, but everyone who knows Yiddish knows this is Yiddish for "you damn sure will") and what I will eat and not eat and how I will never again do a few of the things on my Things to Which I Have Stupid Alliegiance list.

I feel lucky today to be able to sit up today with only moderate pain. I feel lucky to feel my toes. I feel lucky that I got an appointment to see a physician, even if it IS on February 28th.

Yesterday I couldn't read. Today I can. I am glad to be back to see you all again. I am grateful to Ankie, and Miss Thally, Mac and Ken and S, who called to see if I needed help; to K who brought food; and to my little brother, who always says, "If you need me, I'll come, no matter where I am or what I am doing," and to my mother who drove over and sat by me while I dreamed in opium delirum for three days. (Still having some trouble with words, excuse my rambling and spelling.)

So today I set medical appointments, readjusted contracts to not have to schlep a computer for 3 months, adjusted travel to include a few rest days and went for 3 walks. Really short ones.

That's all it took. Easy, wasn't it.

Changes

2006-01-10T22:27:00.000-08:00

K writes on his site, “Frankly, I'm getting really tired of the struggle.”

I have been thinking about being tired of things lately and wondering, about my own mind and activity, when I will be tired enough of a few things to relinquish them (and I appreciate K, for reminding me of it in his poste).

I have a remarkably unshakable allegiance to a few stupid things. Anyone from the outside could see they do me harm, or at the very best, no good at all, and yet, without a shred of evidence to support it, I cling to their enactment as if my life depended on them. It’s a bit like feeling you must see a horror film, hating the nightmares you get from seeing it, and then signing up for The Horror Channel as your only form of entertainment. Geeze.

I do understand that causal effects are complicated–that these old habits have many, many causes, seen and unseen. But I help people solve complicated problems for a living. When people ask me what I do (to which I sometimes reply, with honest bafflement, “About what?”–until I realize what they are asking) I usually say, “I solve the problems of others, thereby avoiding my own.” It’s not entirely a joke.

Here is a small list of examples of my Current Stupid Things to Which I pay Daily Homage:

• I refuse to eat until I am so hungry I eat stuff that makes me feel awful. Good business for the café below my office, disastrous for my body.
• I get the least sleep possible when I really need quite a bit. Get lots done, die early.
• I refuse to offload work that I have no capacity for, and that I loathe. Take responsibility, exhaust myself and use up time that could be spent in fruitful endeavor.

Go figure. I am not tired enough of any of this to change behavior. I wonder what it would take to get me there. I shudder to think.

Pouring

2006-01-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

Rain slips between dark clouds
and soaks the ground.

Enter me like this.

Something Safer

2006-01-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

Gen-jo wrote today, a small note of tiny details, on brown paper. I have not seen him for a month now, but you would not know it from the note. He has no sense of time. My body left, but he didn’t notice. He probably still asks me to sweep the tea room and wonders why I don’t answer.

Le-da hasn’t spoken in weeks. I have seen her every day, but she is holding on to her sadness like a favorite doll. Maybe she thinks it brings out the colour of her eyes. Others agree.

Namchen has been busy. He has made one thousand candles to date. If he lights them all at once, we will loose our eyebrows in the blast of heat.

It’s risky business, this life. But I have never wanted something safer.

Surely

2006-01-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

By what authority
do you capture the land inside
my imagination?

By whose rules are you allowed
to turn my attention on
the image of your face?

Which is harder,
having you
or knowing you will be lost?

I want to know these things before
we continue.

You leave a tiny trail
of love crumbs.
I gather them into the folds
of my skirt. Now what?

You appear later in a dream.
With careful hands, you open
my mouth, slip a finger inside.
Surely a shy moon shudders
to see such willingness.

Too Many from which to Choose

2006-01-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

Sculpture by Debra Fritts.

His Love Resides

2006-01-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

If I prayed to the empty wind
would there be an answer?

Would I rise
from sleep tomorrow
and find you in the kitchen,
reading the paper?

Would you point
to the tall pot
of black coffee
on the table and
pull out a chair
while you
switched to Section B?

I don’t ask God questions.
I ask him for answers.

I listen for his laughter
in the hollow of silence
and try to remember that
his love
resides in all bodies,
not just yours.

Weeds and Wanderlust

2006-01-06T23:02:00.000-08:00

Oh my. Wander over to Paula's House of Toast (great image, eh?) and take a look at the photo trail she's left from her journeys on December 28th. Paula, you've outdone yourself.

Again.

Wisdom Diva

2006-01-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

image by Tara Sullivan copyright 2006

Homage to the glorious Vajra Dakini! In ancient India, there was a country of 38,000 villages named Katchie. An old couple with three sons and three daughters lived in a western village of this land during a time of drought and scarcity. They were very poor.

Among all eight of them, they had only one vase of rice. They sealed the lid of this vase and hid it away, to save it for a more difficult time, while they all went out to look for food, the sons to the south, the daughters to the north, and the father to the west. The mother, who at this time was 59 years old, stayed home.

While she was home alone, a beggar, who was in even greater distress and hunger than she, came to their house. She pitied him and so she cooked all the rice in the vase and gave it to him. After a while, the father returned home, having found no food. He was very hungry and weak and thought that now was the time to eat the rice and regain strength before going back out again to look for more. The sons and daughters returned at the same time, also empty-handed and very hungry. They said to the mother, "Get out the rice now and cook it; we are very weak and hungry."

The mother said to them, "I thought that you might get some food, so I gave all the rice to a poor man who came here begging."

At this, the husband and children were very upset and together cried out at her, "You've done this before. Rather than go out as we do to beg and look for food, you give away all the food that we have gotten! You continually make us miserable -- Get out of here!" and they threw her out of the house.

The old woman crossed Katchie and came to the western Uddiyana land. She saw that all the men in this land were courageous and noble, and the women were possessed of great fortitude. Upon arriving in Uddiyana, her mind felt naturally clear. It was harvest time, and so she obtained a large bag of rice and soon had a place in the village market making and selling rice wine.

At this time, a great teacher, Birwapa, also called Awa Dotipa, lived in the jungle nearby, engaged in profound meditation. He had a companion, a very reverent and devoted lady, who went regularly to the market to buy him wine. After a while, she began buying from the old woman, since her wine was so delicious.

One day, the old woman asked the yogi’s companion, "To whom do you bring this wine?”

"I offer it to a great yogi who lives in the jungle nearby," she answered.

Then the old woman said, "Since this is the case, you may have this wine for free and she gave her some especially delicious and strong wine to bring to the yogi.

Upon her return, Birwapa said to his companion, "You bring all this fine wine back without paying for it. How do you manage that?"

"There is a very devoted wine seller in the market, completely different from the ones we used to buy from. When I told her that I come to get wine for a great lama, she was filled with devotion and insisted on giving this wine to me as an offering," she replied.

Upon hearing this, Birwapa said, "I should liberate this woman from the three samsaric worlds.”

The lady returned and asked Sukhasiddhi if she would like to meet the yogi. The old woman's heart soared with joy and aspiration at this prospect, and so, with a vase of her special wine and a piece of meat to offer him, she went to see the yogi. Birwapa completely bestowed upon her the four secret empowerments and instructed her in the meditation of development and accomplishment [i.e., form and formless meditation].

Sukhasiddhi was transformed into a Wisdom Dakini. By the next day, her 61- year-old impure karmic body was completely and naturally purified, becoming transmuted into a rainbow body by the power of her accomplishment. She became youthful in appearance, like a 16-year-old girl, her skin shining clear and white, and her hair flowing down her back. She was so beautiful that one could never look at her and turn away satisfied, but would always want to continually gaze upon her. She remained in the sky and became known as Sukhasiddhi, the Union of Bliss and Accomplishment. She became a selfless dakini and the spiritual companion of Birwapa.

Through overcoming death, Sukhasiddhi lives eternally beyond the cycle of rebirth and spreads her blessings six times daily to all sentient beings in all realms of existence by her great wisdom.

To those beings whose thoughts are pure, she gives teaching, and to all those who perform the secret sadhana and pray devotedly to her, she bestows many blessings and transfers extraordinary spiritual accomplishment. Likewise, anyone hearing the biography of this great wisdom dakini and thereafter hearing her name will feel inspired with devotion.

Quoted with permission from Radiant Wisdom, KDK Publications, San Francisco, 1979.

A Candle for Your New Year

2006-01-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

This wonderful giant butter lamp and other photos are here.

Pouring

2006-01-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

It's pouring here in P-town. Slippery, slivery, sideways sheets of rain. I have ruined two pairs of shoes. I forget.

It's like the relentless rain of Nepali monsoon, only cold. No dancing in thin cotton shirts on the roof. No running through leech filled rivulets on slippery mud trails in the jungle. The sidewalks are under water. The bamboo in my back yard is bent under the weight of wet.

Perfect nights for a fire. Perfect mornings for lying in bed with the covers over your head. Perfect background music for a longish sit, wrapped in fleece and flannel.

Who Do You Love?

2006-01-01T21:15:00.000-08:00

Who do I love? I love Louie Belogenis.

Louie is a 50+ year old sax playing jazz genius in New York City. Even if you don't like sax, even if you think it's idiotic to be vegan, even if you have issues with Buddhists in General, you're going to love Louie, too. Oh yeah.

My best memory? One summer, on a longish mediation retreat, I was walking out in the woods, and I heard the fine, slim melody of his sparkling sax weaving its way between the trees. I walked closer and saw that he was standing on a bridge, playing over the base line of the river. It started to thunder, and Louie played inside the weather and God and Louie had a talk, right then and there. What a thing to witness.

If Louie wasn't in love with Beth, the third most beautiful opera singer in New York, I'd kidnap him and bring him out west, which would make an awful lot of people happy--and only some of them music fans. But he is. And she is, back. So, Okay, Beth and Louie, I love you both.

Never

2006-01-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance." --Sam Brown

Fill Us Then With Love

2005-12-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

illustration by David Mah

Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen

Thomas Merton, from the Asian Journals, page 319

Oh My Gosh

2005-12-27T12:08:00.000-08:00

All right, you've probably had enough of Christmas music, but as an ex-cartooner, I really feel I must poste this fine singing Chrstmas card by Joshua Held, complete with crooning reindeer. Be sure your speakers are on.

Taking Stock

2005-12-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Almost New Years. I have replaced chipped red cups with new ones; and the plain glasses, half of which were broken by My Favorite Guests this year, with tall ones with red polka dots. I would not have chosen these myself, but my friend, Miss KM, chose them for me. “These dishes are too boring,” she remarked of neat stacks of red plates and white pasta bowls and a small tower of green soup bowls.

Well, all right. Polka dots it is.

And today I will put away all the Christmas decorations except the tree and will set straight all the drawers and dust everything and trim the houseplants. I will line shoes neatly in the closet and will clean out the recycle bins.

Once a year I do these little things. It’s not really a matter of tidiness so much as it is pausing to take stock. While I do this, I consider whether my life is Off in the Right Direction. And if it seems not, I’ll consider what I might do to make it so.

This new year’s eve I’ll drive to my brother’s house for a game of Texas Hold Em, which I most certainly do not know how to play. He’ll fix that.

What I might like to do even more than that is have you all over for a quiet night around the fire. I’d make Curried Everything and we could listen to anyone foolish and brave enough to sing, and tell stories that never made it to our blogs. We could plan a trip to Kathmandu for the fall, where we’d meet at Pilgrim’s Bookstore, out in the garden, over endless pots of tea and mango lassi. We’d complain about the parrots and the heat and write in our Moleskines and plan a trip on elephants to Gokarna Park.

Or not.

Well, Maybe...

2005-12-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

No Peas Ever

2005-12-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

She says, "I will eat broccoli, carrots (cooked only), cauli', asparagus, beans, lentils, lettuce, all manner of greens and even Eggplant. But I will never eat peas."

All That Time Left

2005-12-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

He brought a small Douglas Fir this year, during the snow storm, and perched it atop the ancient oak chest. He wrapped the bottom in 6 yards of Indian silk and we brought out the many, old and tattered ornaments. I put coloured lights on the mantle, and tiny, shimmering trees and toys carved from wood, kept from the many Christmases past.

I love the glow and glitter of Christmas. The way it fits its colourful self between creaking Oriental apothecary chests and stoic Shaker cabinets. The way small twinkle lights cast shadows on the old jacquard couch and the Indian carpets, worn thin in all the right places.

I like the way four tired friends dropped in tonight–our short trip round the corner to the Vietnamese market and the steaming pile of green beans and bok choy in garlic sauce, just a few conversations later.

I like the too many piles of books, mismatched silver candlesticks and Zopa’s mysterious Buddha painting, absorbing sound and chaos. I like the Tibetan tapestry over the door with mistletoe hung in front. I like the small photos of friends and the offering bowls, all lined up as if to create order where there is none.

I like the one present left to wrap after a shopping spree with my children-friends–a plastic, Japanese thermos bought by Miss K M, who is 13, for her friend, the writer, Mr. A, who is more than double her years, and perhaps just barely her match.

I love it all, I confess. And there’s a whole week left to sleep in, to stay up too late and to read your blog.

Your Christmas Card

2005-12-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished making Christmas cards. I'd mail you one, but I don't have your address. Will you give it to me? It's getting late.

Yes, you.

Winter Where I Live

2005-12-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

There's a wind howling down from the gorge, and this morning there was a quarter inch of ice on my porch. The snow in the streets has pretty much melted, but it's a night for a three log fire and a long book. The bamboo are bent under the cold and all the flowers that were ambitious enough to send shoots up early are shriveled to ground level now. It's winter, for sure.

We don't really know winter here out west. A light jacket and one pair of wool socks will get you through. But every year, for a few days running, weather like this hits and we wonder, "Should I buy one of those long wool coats and a hat?"

We think and we stew and then about the time we think we should, it lets up and we're back to leaving our Gortex pullover on the peg by the door.

We all own one glove. None of us own a snow shovel. We have boots, but they're more likely to be cowboy boots than they are themal-insultated, serious-made-for-snow sort of shoes. We have umbrellas, but they're for visitors. We are only mildly inconvenienced by the weather, and we say if you don't like it, wait ten minutes.

And no one, no one--cancels for rain.

The Brain Does Tiny Zero

2005-12-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

All right. Tiny Zero. It happens every so often, though I almost never talk about it. I am somewhere, going somewhere else, usually, on the way between there and here, and suddenly I realize I have no idea where I am, or where I am going, though oddly enough, I often know why.

Of course I have a Palm Pilot and a nice leather document case, and I can open one or the other and figure it out. I usually do that, since if I am not home--which I generally do recognize--it is the case that someone has paid me to be somewhere, to do something, which, even when I know quite a lot about it, is mysterious to me.

I get paid for doing what I might do anyway. People tell me their problems and we talk and draw pictures until they have arrived at a solution. Or maybe we make a date for another round of talks. Really, they wouldn’t need to pay me. If they asked nicely, I’d probably come for free if they sent the tickets and gave me a reservation confirmation number at a hotel.

I mean, what are we for, if not for this?

But I do wish sometimes, that I would look in that case and there would be no ticket, and that I could do what I did for some years in Asia: I would just look around, choose a direction and start walking. Wherever I arrived would be the right destination, since I had nowhere in particular to go.

Of course, as far as I know, I was never paid to do that. But with this little brain problem, even of that, I am not entirely sure.

Enchantment, Indeed

2005-12-14T20:04:00.000-08:00

B wrote, "In the summer, I love to sleep high in the mountains above timberline, under the stars,....where ..the slightest of human movements, opening your eyelids, brings unimaginable treasures in the sky..... burning away silently .....the way snow piles up its blessings at night"

Well, yes. I love that, too. Anywhere under any stars. Yes, that small, delicate movement, that flicker that opens the windows to all things possible, the simple opening of the eyes, is delicious. The treasures in the sky? Yes, all glimmer against the black, velvet expanse of emptiness. Burning.. yes. Reminders of both time and no-time. The way the snow piles up it's blessings. Oh yes. You saw that? You felt it?

Yes.

The Land of Enchantment

2005-12-13T20:47:00.000-08:00

Here in the land of enchantment, otherwise known as New Mexico, I have my brain on strategies for increasing income. Not mine. Mine is defacto enough. But the income of others.

It's not reallly what I want to think about. I want to take a walk across the broken ice puddles and think about Christmas, and New Years, and the grand luxury of having nothing to do on either. How I am looking forward to lounging with friends in front of the fire, and finishing the thought that I was writing on a yellow legal pad today. But only if it seems right.

Stay warm. It's cold. Do you sleep with the window open when it's this cold? I do. If the window opens, I open it.

I once slept in a friend's house where the walls of the bedroom upstairs slid open on barn-door sliders and the whole of the forest was let inside. I loved that place. Right up there with grand places to sleep.

The Lost Poste on Violet Skies

2005-12-12T20:33:00.000-08:00

Somber violet sky, lavender in between. The rain soaks in and the sound follows it. It’s so quiet, then. But never quiet enough. I carry noise with me. My bones are built of it. It triggers the movement of my muscles and makes my eyes blink. One noisy idea cascading onto another. There are breaks, of course, where the simple experience of color seeps in. Then I see the quiet sky. Feel the pending wind.

There are stories that need to be told and poems to be scratched out on scraps of paper. Other things that no one else thinks very highly of. Wine to be drunk. Windows to be looked out of. Complaints to be lodged. So much to do and we’re all so behind.
It’s crazy now. One minute sunny, the next pouring rain. Then a kind of open space that fills with expectation. Why is it not enough to just sit and watch it? To walk in it or sleep through it?

The painter, Sean, is in the studio next door today. He’s playing a winsome chamber set. The hall is dark. What I want to do is lean up against his door and listen to the music. The faint smell of oils coming from under the door.

The empty space of the hallway, light layer of dust in the air. How I love this old hotel, over a hundred years of comings and goings fades into near nothingness on a day like this. It pulls me. I take breaks on work day, but always come in on holidays. Who would want to miss this? Everything settling. A kind of intelligence that comes of not doing.

Let’s have a day when we loosen our grip on things and results. When we ease our commitment to measuring time and being smart. Let’s settle, instead, on the dazzling display of appearing and disappearing. Let’s pass by the mirrors, full of the images of busy, self-important people. Faces, including our own, that no light could possibly shine through. Let’s give it up for an hour or a morning, at least.

Down at the train yards, I watch the trains come in. I imagine you appear by virtue of invitation. You tell me how the engines work and I tell you about the invention of time schedules and Louis Vuitton trunks. We recognize our speech for the music that it is, full of unimportant and meaningless syllables–"you" and "I," "they" and "we." We push through the words that divide, to the indivisible.

Why wish for union? Let me say your name. A storm rising in the north puts the right color on the horizon. I’m tired of waiting for who knows what. A small wind raises the oil-soaked dust of the train yard and I dare to think it’s done. All of it, at once. Wanting passes through the boundary to the unseen, to the source of sight. Broken shards of glass glitter. Traffic hums in the distance. The bridge vibrates under my feet.

This day was never marked on a calendar. This intersection was never drawn on a map. How do I know? Look at your face in the mirror. Turn around. Look at your face in the air. I see it like that.

All Here

2005-12-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

Anapana Pabba
In the whole-breath body
a breath is born, lives and dies.
Breathing in, everything.
Breathing out, nothing at all.

Iriyapatha Pabba
This body, just the body.
Standing, walking, lying down.
This body, calligraphic appearance
of myself and others
arriving and departing.

Sampajanna Pabba
Washing a bowl, I know,
I am washing a bowl.
No story here,
but the bowl is clean.

Patikulamanasika Pabba
From the soles of my feet to
the tip of my hair
these many parts whose names I know
inside this skin, layer upon layer.

Dhatumanasika Pabba
Earth, air, fire, water.
They gather everywhere,
why not here?

Sissies?

2005-12-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

At a conference recently, my firm allowed me to speak beyond the numbers and science and to wander out onto the edges of affective domain. I did sessions on transition management and conflict. I led practice groups on difficult discussions and tight situations.

Much to the company’s surprise, people were magnetized to the content. They took me up on offers to meet in the hallway and the exhibit hall and the dining rooms. They talked and they leaned in and some wept. We’re supposed to be all business. That’s what our cards say. That’s what my black suits say. That’s what the slides say.

So why do they cry?

I cry at the drop of a hat.

I am not nervous. I am not afraid. I am overwhelmed at the beauty of life-going-by. Even our mistakes are beautiful. Like the svelte mechanics of watches and lasers, our activity amazes me. Human beings are astonishing. We are intricate and impossibly complex. And we are simple and fine. This makes me weep.

When I say I love us all, I am not being an emotional sop. I am an inflexibly, unreasonably data-oriented woman who needs proof, and who swims in it. I appreciate being able to witness being human, one gesture after another.

Deliverance

2005-12-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

Over on Whiskey River, always a good cup to drink, a good bookshelf to browse, there's a bit posted today, "Attain deliverance from disturbances." It purports to be Zen.

Deliverance. Yes. It's what we reach for. What I reach for. We want to believe that what's inside the things that scare us will save us, eventually. This might be so.

But what would happen if I let go that wanting, even momentarily? What if I just took the things that scare me, without wishing for deliverance or anything else?

I want to know.

Do You Mind?

2005-12-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

Do you mind?

Each day I try to write a poem. Many days, nothings happens. I get a tangle of words, or a distraught string of phrases–but nothing that could be called a poem, even by my weak standards. In the end it doesn’t matter. Setting mind to paper is one of the ways I think. And like most ways of thinking it is vaporous. And like most habits, it is insidiously active, for better or worse.

You inspire me. Many things do, so this is not something to worry about. But I feel I need to ask permission somehow–to have you say it’s okay to feel your unnamed presence in a poem.

I am using you. I am using you to touch the world. To be touched by the world. I am using the experience of you to slip into the body of being human.

Do you mind?

Steady

2005-12-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

I saw you there, sitting on the carpet, talking to friends. Your heart is light to a thousand moments.

Your practice is steady, even though you think it is not. You breathe steadiness. You make the gesture of steadiness with your careful, service-worn hands. Your eyes are steady and the curve of your mouth is steady. The fine arc of your back is steady, even in movement.

Don’t worry about the movement in your practice. You know this already, but I came to remind you. Don’t worry about the wind, the rain and the dark clouds.

You said it yourself. You said, "I saw the last leaf on the maple tree. The wind was twisting and turning it. It was about to fall."

You were looking at yourself. About to fall.

The Road Back

2005-12-11T20:56:00.000-08:00

Today I drove out to GVM to witness the ordination of a friend whose very appropriate Zen name translates into Dragon Heart. That’s what it takes, all right.

120 people were there for the end of the Rohatsu (the celebration of Buddha’s enlightenment) sesshin and for Sunday services and this ordination. There were also the three wild turkeys and a small, resident dog. Nice crowd.

As if it had not been enough for the cooks to cook for 85 people on retreat, they whipped up lunch for 120 or so today, complete with dessert and pre-services tea and snacks. Generosity never ends.

There was frost on the road and heat in my heart. I was glad for both. Everything glittered in the morning sun and for once, I'd had enough sleep. Scattered among the busyness is space, always.

Around every sound is silence.

For the One Who Dreamed

2005-12-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

This is for the one who dreamed

Simple is Best.

You know who you are. You saw your face before you were born.

Coming Home Soon

2005-12-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

I am leaving today and will be home by midnight. Only I need to pack and to remember where I am and which car is mine. The moon will tell me if I sit quietly. Meet me in Taos. That's the plan. Over by the moon.

Giordano Biondani Photography: Thanksgiving in Chicago

2005-12-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

Look at these wonderful photos by Biordano Biondani.. ooh.

It's Snowing

2005-12-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

I am in Columbus (4 days now!) and it's snowing... 5 inches tonight. I fly out tomorrow.

Tonight I had dinner with a red-haired, freckled priest and he was good company. He brought tiramisu and milk to our table. There was a fire in the fireplace and all the conversation was modest. I liked it so much. There was music. There was snow. There was quiet. Is there anything else.. I forget.

Where is Ankie? Did his shoes fall off?

Three Turkeys and a Dog

2005-12-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

Back from my retreat at the Zen monastery. I was sick every morning. Throwing up and unable to sit upright. Every morning the same, more or less.. I'd get up at quarter to four, sit for 40 minutes and then throw up. Next time I'll take a bucket. Rats.

I love this monastery. The monks there show an incredible amout of genuine love and respect for each other and for guests, as well. Even the resident dog, well over 20 years now, gets respect and lovingkindness. Gosh.

There were three turkeys on the land this time. They are big and lumbering and colourful. They walked behind me in kinhin and pecked on the zendo windows. Even a turkey, through its thick fog of bird brain knows this place is safe.

Do you have a million dollars? A thousand? Give it to them, they could use it and I can't think of a better place to spend it than on this place, dedicated to the Great Vow of Jizo Bodhisattva, protector of children and others on the path.

All right. I have more to write, but I have to finish the lesson for the kids program tomorrow. It's a long Sunday and something tells me they won't sit for three hours. :)

The Furies of the Pallid South

2005-12-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Die with sheer force
let the furies of the pallid south
dream through your laughter
and your steps.
Leave absence so vast
that inside you passes air
so transparent
that I see you,
and we die again.

Muse Speak

2005-11-28T23:34:00.000-08:00

You fool - death doesn't leave with the body.It stays behind, lurking in the pockets of worn bathrobes,Empty cough drop wrappers, In a pair of loafers, waiting to go out.
--Susurra

This is a wonderful poem. Read the entirety at over at the house of the Muse de Luze, at A Line Cast, a Hope Followed. Indeed.

Hey, here it is

2005-11-28T21:53:00.000-08:00

My friend, JG, a northwest painter, has a show at a gallery in Washington and one of the pieces is a painting of a local landscape with one of my poems inscribed in silver leaf on the surface. It was fun to collborate. This is the painting and here is the poem about the place, which had to be exactly the number of characters it is. Yikes.

precarious
against the steep mountain
of your heart
the noise i thought was my life
evaporated
leaving the spacious quiet
of a question laid bare:

What is the distance between dreams and oblivion?

snow answers in a cold voice
darkness illuminates traces of knowing,
buried beneath
deciduous syllables of light.

i am waiting for something else to happen
rivers to melt, rushing towards spring,
asking directions

to the distant possibility
of something more innocent,
climbing towards light
scattering transparent code
inside the border
between mist and sky

The painting is at the William Traver Gallery, and is not sold, if you need to decorate your room. *grins* I have three of his works in my house and I never, ever get tired of looking at them. Pure music.

Hey, How Come You Moved?

2005-11-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

Oh well, you know.. the old house got dusty and there were a few people with whom I was feeling too shy to write (no one you know) and so I moved over here.

Lekmo is the abbrieviated form of my dharma name, L*e*k*s*h*e W*a*n*g*m*o...Lekmo for short.

*laughing.

I am off to retreat at noon through Friday tomorrow. Going to sit with my monk pals at GVM. See you then.

Time Will not Take us Back

2005-11-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

Pardon this poem hanging out here in the blogsphere while I find time to finish it.... :) Leks

What happened?
Have you noticed the quiet?
It appears
another year is gone,
sealed by some miracle,
died down
in the perfume of half-laced silences.

Time will not take us back.

Memory is a delicate wind
and will caress you.
Lightning will flash
through the open window
and I will become a dream,
hidden behind ruined and frail things,
my speech, utterance among the rubble
of the ineffable.

Celestial light comes and goes.
The moon calls me to be your slave,
to break apart the invisible world
of unrevealed reflections
through which myriad light
spreads and ignites even
halfhearted seeds of passion.

I was dead
but love is worth spending
and my temporal life said,
"Escape the prison of the lonely.
Revel in the pale frenzy of night,
occupied by the tender secret
traveling inside the invisible circle."

The bitter and the broken are rejoined–
this is not a question of power
I use my body without force
it is easy to forget
what I came for
but I remember
the light in the distance and
reach among inumerable questions,
incurable luminary
of the weak and frail.

Always the ocean of sleep
calls me to your side
but for all the wrong reasons
I drown in the beauty of your eyes.
But for all the wrong reasons
I drown in the beauty of your eyes,

but for all the wrong reasons.

Between

2005-11-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

Waking, I dream that
I am here,
inside this body.

Sleeping
I dream another place,
another time.

Both are fiction--
shadows and
shakey voices
inside the thin space between
isn't and is.

Away with boundaries,
the enemies of spaciousness.
Away with borders,
false and narrow thinking.
Knowledge is the unkind brother
of seeing;
fact the weakly kin
of actual proof.

Thanksgiving at Chez Lekmo

2005-11-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

Appetizers
Salad of Winter Greens with Stilton, Pecans and Sherry Shallot Dressing
Wilted Spinach with Lemon and Pine Nuts
Mushroom Lasagna with Port Sauce
Pecan Pie or Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Yes. No turkey. But I would if you were here to help me cook it.

The recipes are from Field of Greens, the cookbook from the San Francisco vegetarian restaurant, Greens, affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center.

Of course, the real nourishment is sitting down together. The real dessert is the laughter, the quiet, between the stories.

Mmmmm.

Dessert

2005-11-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes,
over tea
in the Persian café
your face becomes your father,
your hands become your mother,
and I receive the love of them both.

There are Days

2005-11-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

there are days
when everything i have known
disappears and appears again
in a new body
in a new light--
when all strangers become friends,
all friends, people i have not yet met

days when the weather comes
from the inside
and i think
how little it has to do with me
even though
i have carried it for a long time
as if it did

there are days when the moon
strikes a pose in the morning sky
against all rules, unashamed,
calling out the names of ancestors
each marked by a dream
waiting to speak

there are days when i fear dying
even as i notice that in the empty space
where my body pretended to be,
a new life already begins

Before We Were Born

2005-11-23T15:34:00.000-08:00

long before i was born
you inhabited this dream,
and painted in strokes of all colour
my life, each breath,
my death, no doubt

reached then between the stars to deliver
the curled announcement
of our unbroken connection
and the steely promise
to never give up, until

leafing through sheaves
of other people’s lives i
underlined the passage
which is your voice now
saying the only things that matter
leaving the best unspoken
in the vast gutteral silence, love

turning in layers of black sky
i felt the empty spot we now inhabit,
slipped through birth and out into a world
filled with stormy recognition
through a clouded lens

your heartbeat against my ear
reminds me always,
time is short
before we slip back
into the veiled space
of the outbreath
others call death

All of the Faithful

2005-11-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

all of the faithful
have left for better venues, bigger gods
and a more fruitful creation.
only the stubborn crouch here on flat ground
under a starless sky,
waiting for the birth of truth.
messengers move among us
hanging notes in the sky
leaving offerings on the alter
of our indecision
i am arriving at a juncture of
no choice
though the ways are two
(i can love you or
i can love you.
what's to decide?)
i came to tell you
but when you stood up to go
i remembered the taste of your
fingers in my mouth
and i remembered the
sound you made
just before
you said no.
this is a prayer
asking god for wisdom
this is a prayer, asking wisdom
for mercy

I am Trying

2005-11-21T23:36:00.000-08:00

I am trying to go to bed, because I told you I would. I am trying to listen for the dream, calling me from the edge of your form, telling me where.

I am leaning in to feel the spine of night that shows the way, lost in the veins of the sky, no longer forbidden, except in daylight. I will meet you there, as we do, between the lines.

Perfectly Fair

2005-11-21T22:07:00.000-08:00

i have borrowed your eyes again
to see in the dark

shadow reveals the small light
of captive hope

those who do not love the blackness
gathered on the lamp glass
do not understand burning

confusion illuminated
i offer you my past
turning to ash

The Wind

2005-11-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

Every curved and curling thing freezes now. You have taken your coat from the peg by the door and gone out walking. You will not say where you have been, nor why. Nightfall has the same taste as death, only the distance is shorter. I could never have come here without you. You know that.