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This poem and others are available in my books, Nothing Works: Meditations on Aikido, Buddhism, the Tao, Zen, and other inconsequential things....and, Nothing Special, and Nothing Matters..., available thru Amazon.com, in print and Kindle editions and Barnes & Noble websites.....Also available as an e-book via Smashwords.com. Try this link: www.nothing-works.com for the full array of options.
In each stroke of the bell
We hear the past and the future
Each class continuing without end
We sit and bow before the tokonoma Our: Sensei, onegai shimasu! Echoing through time
I was born
To pain, doubt, fear,
Perhaps, with some relief
And, maybe some love
But, such are the conditions
Of all births, surely
I learned to navigate
The ups and downs, downs,
More downs, of life
I tried not to become too bitter
And was as successful as some
Perhaps, most...
I sought out answers
To this and that - and more this
I even sought out answers
To questions I didn't even know I had
A much more difficult task
Let me assure you
Sometimes I catch glimpses
Fleeting glimpses of something
Something beyond the obvious, but
As Lord Buddha once said: You're fucked whatever you do! At least, that's what I think he said
But, then, he was always
Saying weird shit -
Weird to me, anyway
Be that as it may
While I still search
I don't, in actuality, expect
To find any real answers
Only in silence and stillness
Can you truly know yourself
From this source of knowledge
And deep, deep strength
You can go forth
And swim in the sea of suffering
That is called the world
And actualize the path to end it
Tell me, who are you? The Buddha is queried I am he who woke up.
Was the response
So goes the ancient story
So simple, so profound
So, when I sit, once settled
I start off my session
With that very question: Who am I?
I let it reverberate
Bounce around inside my head
I watch it slip over the edge
And come back up
Again and again Who am I?
Who am I?
I am still waiting for an answer
He had mastered kata And thought himself invincible
A real dojo tiger
But he had not thought beyond
Beyond mere form, mere kata To the place where victory
Wasn't assured, wasn't preordained
A battlescape where blood,
Pain, and death lived
The awakening was shocking
Was brutal - but his opponent
Called blood, pain, and death, home
To be treated with the fear and respect
They deserve and demand
And be paid a regular tithe
So, planning for victory
Also meant planning for defeat
The opening was where it always was
In the space between the forms -
The gaps - where true victory lies
03-25-2017 07:28 PM 
