Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Just take hold of the source (from The Shodoka)
by Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia / Yoka Genkaku

English version by Robert Aitken

Just take hold of the source
And never mind the branches.
It is like a treasure-moon
Enclosed in a beautiful emerald.
Now I understand this Mani-jewel
And my gain is the gain of everyone endlessly.

/ Image by Unknown. Child: Ivan_M_Granger /

Just take hold of the source
And never mind the branches.

These lines express the essentialism of Zen so well. We are reminded not to dally about with the endless manifestations of the mind and its experiences — even ‘spiritual’ experiences.

Picture a tree for a moment, an ancient tree with a strong trunk. This is the tree of pure awareness. The trunk is the central structure, the source, the foundation of reality, while the branches are the many phenomena that emerge. Each branch is the perception of an experience, an object, a sensation, an encounter, an event. Most people hover at the outer reaches of the tree, and they only ever know the touch of its branches. It is easy to spend an entire lifetime there fascinated by the play of light upon the leaves, endlessly seeking the sweet fruits that grow there, imagining each branch to be its own separate, unrelated experience. And there is always one more branch to explore. There is always one more experience to be had.

But if we really want to know the nature of this tree that is everything to us, then we must find a sturdy branch and trace its route in to the central trunk. We follow the pathways of the mind to the core of still awareness from which mind emerges. Only then do we see what it is that the branches express. Only then do we understand the nature of experience, mind, and awareness. Only then do we know ourselves and our true relationship to the world we experience.

When Hsuan Chueh proclaims that “my gain is the gain of everyone endlessly,” he is reaffirming what mystics have always asserted, that, in that moment of pure awareness, all conflicts, opposites, disharmonies, even past and future, are resolved within the individual. For those who, through compassion, wish to bring healing to the world, the way to do this is to first bring the world to resolution within oneself, and then all actions naturally lead toward establishing that balance externally. Or perhaps we should say all of the world is found to be within oneself. When the world is resolved within, the mind ceases to project false images externally. Resolving the world within, brings “gain” to oneself and automatically brings “gain” to everyone else since everything emanates from that single point of resolution and there is nothing truly external.

And my gain is the gain of everyone endlessly.

(PS- That photo of the boy in the tree… that’s me in the early 1970s.)

Recommended Books: Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia / Yoka Genkaku

This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Buddhism and Zen

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When problems fill the day,
then those problems are the day’s worship.

An eventful couple of weeks. A little over a week ago my wife, Michele, had an acute asthma attack, so severe that we had to call an ambulance in the middle of the night. She spent three days in the ICU and another couple of days in a regular hospital room.

She is back home now, breathing better, but of course still recovering physically and energetically from the ordeal. We are taking everything one step at a time with a sense of gratitude.

Most Americans who have insurance get it through their work, but we are both self-employed, so we are having to make changes to deal with the repercussions and new treatments being recommended for her.

I don’t want to lean on the Poetry Chaikhana community, since everyone was so generous last year in helping us with our big move — for which we are both so grateful.

What that probably means, however, is that these poetry emails may become less frequent for the near future, since I will need to maximize the hours I can put into my day job.

I feel like you are all my neighbors in a wide-reaching neighborhood, and I wanted to let you know what is going on with my family, as well as why the Poetry Chaikhana poem emails may be less frequent for a while. Even if there is a delay between emails, please know that all of your are very much in my thoughts.

Be well. Embrace the wonder of each day. Sending love to you all!

The Task
by Jane Hirshfield

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily — open eyes, braid hair —
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.

— from The October Palace: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield

/ Image by Kinga Cichewicz /

I just recently rediscovered this poem by Jane Hirshfield.

Some of her phrases grab hold of you–

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.

And–

And yes, it is a simple enough task
we’ve taken on,
though also vast

This poem seems to me to be an exploration of the way we awaken each morning to the day, and to the world. It’s a simple enough action; we do it every day, day after day, seemingly without effort or thought. Yet, it is also an immense undertaking each morning: We emerge from a land of rest and sleep and the fluid reality of dreams, we stretch, and rise into the immense reality of the shared tangible world. We step from one immense reality and step into a new immense reality. Simple, right?

What is she suggesting with her imagery of cat and mouse? This is just my reading of it, but knowing Jane Hirshfield to be a Buddhist practitioner, I suspect she is saying something about meditation and mind. Perhaps the meditator’s mind is like the cat; it must come to rest within the luminosity of consciousness. Then perhaps it can dream the mouse.

And the mouse is that hidden, hard-to-find deep mind, nestled safely in the secret corners of the house. The sunlight of daily consciousness may not reach there, but still awareness sees, and life blooms.

What do you think? Do you read it a different way?

Recommended Books: Jane Hirshfield

Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems	The Lives of the Heart: Poems	The October Palace: Poems	Of Gravity & Angels
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Jane Hirshfield US (Contemporary) Secular or Eclectic Buddhist

More poetry by Jane Hirshfield

Find the holy heart
of the moment.

The thief left it behind
by Ryokan

English version by Stephen Mitchell

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.

— from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell

/ Image by Ganpathy Kumar /

A poem for us on this full moon–

Ryokan’s reputation for gentleness was sometimes carried to comical extremes. A tale is told that, one day when Ryokan returned to his hut he discovered a robber who had broken in and was in the process of stealing the impoverished monk’s few possessions. In the thief’s haste to leave, he left behind a cushion. Ryokan grabbed the cushion and ran after the thief to give it to him.

This event prompted Ryokan to compose this haiku, one of his best known poems.

The moon is a common metaphor, especially among the Zen poets, to represent enlightened awareness. In this haiku Ryokan is laughing at the absurdity of the theft. “The thief left it behind,” he foolishly couldn’t recognize the one great treasure the poor monk possessed — “the moon,” enlightenment — and, instead, took an armload of worthless junk. (To point out what a petty haul it was, Ryokan even ran after the thief with the missed cushion — perhaps a nudge toward meditation.) Any sort of theft of Ryokan’s possessions was a pointless act because, of course, who can take the moon from his window — or enlightenment from his awareness? Ryokan is amused and invites us to join in his laughter.

Recommended Books: Ryokan

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition	The Poetry of Zen: (Shambhala Library)	Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan
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Ryokan Japan (1758 – 1831) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

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Each day
magically unfolds possibility
into reality.