STAGE 3
CATCHING SIGHT OF THE OX
Introduction
If you attain by way of sounds,
you will encounter the source of all seeing.
The six sense organs are each no different from this;
in all actions, the head is revealed.
It is like the salty taste of the water,
the binder in the paint.
Raise your eyebrows,
and this is nothing other than THAT itself.
Verse
The bush warbler sings on the branch.
The sun is warm, the breeze gentle,
and the willows on the riverbank are green.
There is no place you can escape from him.
That majestic head and horns could never be painted in a picture.
So Daiho:
In all of the women, books and chess, there was still something missing yet demanding to be found. I often found myself sitting on one of the keys waiting for the sun to come up. Fascinated with morning light. Angry. Hurt. Wanting o blame G-d, men, and country.
Such wounds as the wounds of war are forever open.
The sea was rolling in and out. The jobs came and went. So did the wives. Is this all there is?
No. A shadow.
I met a man named Bernie Schmidt. He was a loud man. He was a strong man. He taught me a few things. He taught me about shouting and learning and studying and not taking second best. He taught me compassion did not mean making excuses. He taught me to love without so much concern for white bread notions of normal. He made 'joyful noises unto the lord!" But was not a religious man. He offered me a copy of Walden and a copy of The Way of Zen.
Not too long ago my friend of nearly forty years died.
The shadow stirs.
Be well,
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