Praise for Songs for the True Dharma Eye
“Poetry alchemizes whatever it looks at, by passing it through the full, 360 degree array of our human capacities. Without such capacious permeability, there can be no poem, only a shell resembling poetry’s living shape. … Present equally in these poems is a wonderful buoyancy—humor, mind-suppleness, cultural sampling, at least one atrocious pun, a continual refreshing of vision. Zen, however austere it may at times appear from the outside, is not a practice of purity, rigidity, or strictness. Like poetry, Zen asks us only one thing: to become permeable and awake to the full range of our lives.” — From the foreword by Jane Hirshfield Shunju/
Spring and Autumn “When You’re Not You’re Not” Chillin’ in the deep freeze, frying on the hot seat, When upright dry ice smokes, does it ever also shiver? Dancing in the center beyond sensation and perception, A black cat purrs curled up among the zafus. Nyorai Zenshin/ The Whole Body of the Tathagata “All of Us So Close to Buddha” The whole body of the One Thus Come Falls in the raindrops and drips from the eaves. Hearing this sutra in the cool morning calm, Relics run like rivulets amid the mud and leaves.