Taken at Lincoln Park Zoo in the summer of 2018.
DAILY PHOTO: Lounging Cotton-Top Tamarin
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Author Archives: B Gourley
POEM: Where Breath Isn’t Free
Woe is the place where breath isn’t free —
underwater, metaphorically or literally.
A cement-shoe walk through the pond,
looking up to the blurred and shimmering light
that you can’t reach —
with an intense urge to suck air,
air that isn’t there.
An attempted breath would be an act of suicide —
no more satisfying than any act of suicide —
but a good deal more painful than most.
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DAILY PHOTO: Khalsa Memorial Reflections
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BOOK REVIEW: Teachings of the Buddha ed. by Jack Kornfield
Teachings of the Buddha: Revised and Expanded Edition by Jack Kornfield
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a collection of excerpts and short writings conveying Buddhist teachings. The pieces range in length from about a stanza of verse to a few pages in length. Each lesson tells what book it comes from and who the translator was, which can be a nice feature if one will be comparing different translations.
Unlike Walpola Rahula’s similarly named “What the Buddha Taught,” which focuses entirely on what Gautama Buddha taught while he was living, this book includes many teachings from long after the life of the Buddha. Which is to say, this is more a book of Buddhist teachings than an elucidation of what the Buddha, himself, taught. [Not to offend, but religious teachings seem to inevitably shift and evolve over time, and so what is taught by various sects of Buddhism today is by no means a perfect reflection of what the Buddha, himself, taught.] That said, the writings toward the beginning of the book tend to be closer to the Buddha, himself – i.e. from the “Dhammapada” and other early Pali works. While the teachings toward the end of the book tend to be more from much later (e.g. from the Zen tradition.)
I found the book to be quite readable and to feature some intriguing food for thought. If you are interested in an English translation of Buddhist sutras, scriptures, koan, etc., this is a good work to check out.
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POEM: Life Behind the Veil
Those who wished to see but not be seen
would sit and see the world through carved screens,
taking in the thriving market scenes,
watching hunched women sweep the streets clean,
vendors ladling curry from tureens,
pickpockets who thought themselves unseen,
and drunks who use walls as a latrine.
What’s worse about life behind the veil,
the sight of lives lived beyond the pale,
or knowing you live outside the tale?
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DAILY PHOTO: Temples Top the Trees, Tikal
POEM: Kindred Spirits [Prose Poem]
Sitting with my wife at the breakfast table this morning, I was struck by the realization that human beings and seedless watermelons have something important in common. We were both robbed of our evolutionary raison d’être, and, in both cases, the culprit was humanity (the OTHER “damned dirty ape.”)
But, at least, humans have gotten a chance to choose their new [and, hopefully, improved] reason for being. Seedless watermelons have not been so lucky.
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DAILY PHOTO: Ruins of Lopburi
Limerick of the United Arab Emirates
There was a man from the UAE
who cleaned windows for a small fee,
’til he got the urge
to work at the Burj.
Then his rates went up radically.
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POEM: Turvy Town [Sonnet]
In our town, soundless sounds abound.
The right are wrong; the sighted, blind.
The king is fired, and peasants crowned.
The waters plowed; the sky is mined.
The pauper ‘s taxed; the righteous fined.
Arsonists fight fire with more fire.
Notebooks are vertically lined.
Sellers hand money to buyers.
Only the town nudist is attired.
Workers fill holes yet to be dug.
Things are made after they’ve expired.
Patients prescribe the doctors’ drugs.
If your right is left and up is down,
you’re perfect for our Turvy Town.
