Dharma Library

for Hughie

High in the hills of Wales
somewhere above Ceredigion
a fenceless gate swings in the wind.

Bold spirit are you?
A rugged glance, good boots or a 4 by 4
and you're away.

among sheep and ravens
cloudwise among crags
bogs and sudden mist

a falling white out
lost in the desert
chilly too.

Coming down a valley no one ever saw before
the dead still sing in the Inn.
Finding a way home not so easy…

Among the glens, bogs and lochans of the western Highlands of Scotland the dividing line between the natural and the supernatural is thin indeed. Beside Loch Shiel

A dagger and a ram's skull
in the summer tanglewood
no birds sing.

That was the explanation why, several years previously, we had camped overnight on the trackless shore too weary to go further, yet each gripped by too much inner terror…

Copper whispers blowing in the wind,
beech leaves chase the rough grasses down the field.
At ninety two, I ask myself,
will she see another spring?
She rests there, quiet, her busy conversation gone,
anxieties softened now in forgetfulness of age.
Beside her in the garden, dozing off,
I see her smiling in a ray of autumn sun.
She set my character in grooves
so like her own, wakeful mornings worrying;
skille…

Up at the Maenllwyd -
funny how the days roll by.
I don't seem to be doing anything,
cleaning and writing and cooking
and sitting and walking
sleeping and waking.

Where does it all go?

The time so clear
nobody here
hours - hours
or merely minutes?
Today it is warm;
yesterday cold;
the wind changes,
clouds keep going -
in different directions.

Tonight a comet hangs over the yard
tail streaming in far off sunshine.
D…

The "Grand Tour of Buddhist India", a major contribution to our pilgrimage programme, visited nearly all the major sites of Buddhist history and archaeology in India: Elephanta, Kanheri, Bhaja, Karla, Nasik, Ajanta, Ellora, Sanchi, Sarnath, Bodhgaya, Rajgriha, Kusinagara and Lumbini, just over the border in Nepal. Along the way we wrote notes and poetry some of which we record here. Julia has…

                          Grey stone mountain
                          rain
                          and the gathering fogs
                          Drip drip the gutters
                          and the gurgling stream.
                          Two ravens out of the mirk
                          strut about warily
                          not seeing the face behind the window,
                    …

The following poem was written by Martin Tebbs during the Chan retreat with Master Sheng Yen at Maenllwyd in June 1995. The last line refers the woolly socks given to Shifu by two Polish students who attended the retreat (Eds.)

Today everything is different,
Everything the same.
 
How is it different?
In a cloudless sky the swallows glide
effortlessly, leaving no trace;
Young lambs call and call.
  
How…

They said not a word
The visitor, the host
and the white chrysanthemum.
 
The Old Pond
A frog jumped in 
Plop!
What?
 
...the listener who listens in the snow,
and nothing himself
Beholds nothing that is not there,
and nothing that is.
 
What is?
 
What th'?  What that?What? What th'?
s,is,is,is,is,is,is,is,is
And I am. And I am that.
Neither and both
and that.
 
But
What is it?
  
What is
is, and I am
This.
What is
is and I…

It was a cliff overhang rather than a real cave. But the walls glowed with beautiful lichens, and at one end was a rockfall hung with ferns. I cleared out the sheep dung, set up a little shrine, cut a bed of reeds and laid out my sleeping bag. I was in business at least as a part-time hermit.

Notwithstanding two decades of tough Zen training, I still had a romantic itch for the hermit life - all…

I always tried to be so good
And do the things that Buddha would
But now I find it's come to pass
That no good things were made to last.

So now I stand upon this hill
Submit myself to thine own will
And in the merry month of May
The beast I feared has come to play.

I've given up the strength to fight
No longer yearn for love or light
For now it's hell's gates that open to receive me
And it's the Antichrist…