Facets of a Diamond – Blog

Yesterday,
the trees danced.
Today,
they are still.
Different meditations.

At the end of his tragically short life (1850-1904), Lafcadio Hearn, “Japan’s Greatest Interpreter,” wrote this in his Reverie.* Especially poignant as he had been separated from his mother since he was two:

“It has been said that men fear death much as the child cries at entering the world, being unable to know what loving

Most self-help books
are primarily for the help
of the self of the author.

There is a purpose other than the usual for living. It is to be healing.

This, to the best of my efforts, is at the core of my endeavors.

I am not an author, only a writer attempting to heal. I am not an artist, only a painter attempting to heal.

Whoever I am, I am a healer

On the subject of the Spirit World, he loudly, proudly, proclaims that he is a cynic. This cynic?

“Cynics are only happy in making the world as barren to others as they have made it for themselves.” 

— George Meredith, The Egoist

One of the basic tenets of Zen – and every religion, even Zen, has its dogmas – is that of Direct Pointing, without reference to the literature.

And yet so many Zen masters write!

I look at the trees around me. All directly pointing. So Zen.

I’m blessed by this house
in so many ways,
but perhaps most of all
by these trees so Alive.

To write tuneless
and yet
of your Mother of Love,
you must be
very sure of Her.

A chorus of leaves
singing as conducted.

Trees, too,
are danced
by Shiva.