One evening on my porch In August 2020— After a day of dodging stressful calls, During a week, month, and year That I have very much panicked And sobbed my way through, A mechanic algorithm Shifts joyful immersion In celebratory songs To mournful ballads Stealing cultivated lightness of being And souring goodness of mood With suggested songs That tug on the corners Of my angst But still, I stay locked in Because I crave it Until In the midst of melodic wailing My emotional sh

Numbers and Lists I find myself Trying to forget the numbers Even as the umbrella shelters Four noble truths Three marks of existence Five disassembled aggregates Three poisons and five fences Ten perfections and four sublime states Twelve fetters and equal consequences And at least five suggested commitments Under the eight steps we choose to walk— I find myself Trying to forget the numbers As it goes beyond numbers That suffering is life’s inevitability Caused by thirst and

Poem From Eightfold: Wonderland I have dived down the rabbit hole Chasing the elusive hare, Forever late for meeting myself Caught in lost presence— Fixated and unaware. I’ve fallen into a void of nothing, Grasping at, for, everything— Finding bits and pieces, Within the barren vacancy— Cherishing and clenching Whatever my hands could hit. I have dined with the mad Around warm tables with fuzzy tea Sharing visionary and lucid dreams— Swept out of my right mind, And anesthetiz

Luminosity On the edge of a field There remains a smattering of old gourds, Not quite yet shriveled, But past their sell-by date Set out to be taken by nature— And on the edge of my mind There remains a scattering of past thoughts, Not quite yet withered But past their use value Ready to be replaced by Infinite luminosity Raining down From an expansive sky. Eightfold: Zen Poetry for Blindly Clasping Beings is a collection of sixty poems that reflect the author’s continual con

A Poem of a layperson: Part I I move closer to Nirvana By the presence and attention Worthy of every moment of life— Not just the quiet, The easy, The planned, And the expected. That’s what they say, And sitting atop A black and white mandala Embroidered on a meditation cushion Or walking step by step Over grassy knolls and concrete sidewalks With a focus on the immediacy of existence, I’ve seen it to be true— For a minute, anyway Here and there, anyhow In between recurrent