skyscrapers rise & fall storms hit & wither waves crash & recede nature neither blesses nor curses, despite the constant counting of its boons & banes; its bonanzas & broken bones one who can feel grateful in the face of ignorance & imperfection is free one who feels suffering in the absence of perfect comfort will never know freedom such a one as that imprisons himself in a cycle of imagining & coveting a perfection that has never existed
It's like sticking one's head out the window of the southbound night train. A rushing thunder fills the ears -- almost deafening -- and that's before the passing northbound train shears past, letting wail the whistle in one long blow. And (now) one is deaf, but the cyclone eddies shake one's flesh & rattle through one's bones so hard that one can whole body hear: one's entire skeleton vibrating like those tiny inner ear bones. It was dark before the scintillant streams of strobing light burned a void into one's picture place. There's no smelling a thing in that crossfire hurricane, but one can taste big gulps of train exhaust -- exhaust with a cotton candy consistency but foul tasting to the last bite. And then it is quiet and dark and peaceful, and it's not clear whether one is alive or dead, and it's not clear whether one cares whether one is alive or dead.
They were written into the lives of ancients, written into the oldest stories, carved into cave & temple, alike. These beasts terrorized and defended -- sometimes both at the same time. Towering stacks of hours were lost to the beastly crunch of their teeth. Early peoples tried feeding bleating creatures to these intermediate beasts -- these watchable monsters: one's too scary to chase, but too still to run from. But they were as relentless in their non-hunger as they were in inspiring long chains of possibility.
Diamondless Diamonds? Sounds like Daoist doublespeak or a crazy Zen koan. But, it's that which has imaginary value, but not real value. Much of what human hands reach for or produce (& which human minds obsess upon) are diamondless diamonds. People stare at them with covetous eyes, but when those eyes saccade away there's no reason to believe the diamondless diamond still exists. Eyes covet what the mind knows to have no particular worth. Diamondless Diamonds may change the world for moments at a time, but then are gone - and instantly forgotten.
in summer, the tarn looks like greenish concrete, then settles to teal glass
echoed Buddhas, each as still as the last, focus on nothing
stupas point up to the vast blue skies; nothing points back
Tiger Riding for Beginners 