A Tibetan Lama taught me a form of meditation.
I just did it.
When he did it, it just looked like he was sitting.
Just that.
He didn't blink much, but I do.
Later, we had dinner together.
He told me that my spiritual life was not half bad...and not half good.
I agree.
I'll try to improve.

Time is an illusion
of the motion
of objects in space,
and the past
is a record
of the motion
of objects in space,
so the present moment
is not a moment,
it is eternity,
therefore time does not exist,
and growth
is a function
of the motion
of objects in space,
and these objects
are mass
which is none other
than energy,
and no energy
can leave space,
and death is only
transformation of energy,
and all mass/energy
is life,
and all mass/energy
is neither natural
nor artificial,
as these are only
thought constructions,
so everything is alive,
therefore,
welcome to eternal life.

I was at a Zen temple
where there was a person
with a shaved head
wearing a robe
and I couldn't tell
if it was a man or a woman.

Part of this mind
is furiously angry
and part of this mind
is extremely kind
and this is a condition
which applies
to my whole family
and I have been struggling
to control the anger
by letting it be
and I have been practicing
to bring out the kindness
by being right here with us
so the dual nature
of the split mind

is non-existent
in this suchness
which doesn't have
to be silent,
only loving.

Fingers touching with thumbs touching in a pose of air,
like velvetine cloth instead of this fleshy stuff,
full with blood and muscle and skin with blue lines,
on fire now with tapping the plastic keys of a mechanical toy,
down from above where the light makes my eyes wide,
silly addition to man's genius which will save us,
just like his berries and apples that fill us with gasoline,
on fire like my late father who poured it on something,
with car's engines purring like oceans out on the roads,
away from all trouble, people perched on vinyl seats,
talking about their troubles to others with theirs,
as beings all over are sleeping.

Here in this rich suburb
of a city which is perceived
as dangerous,
the squirrels run
right in front
of the speeding cars,
and some of the squirrels
stop in time, turn around,
and go back to the safe side,
but some keep running
and get squashed by the speeding cars.
So one day
I was driving
and a squirrel
ran under my car
and as I drove on
I looked back
to see him writhing in agony,
so the next car
put him out of his misery
by running over his dying body.
I have not gotten past
being a squirrel myself
facing such an end.

Walking up the stairs
out of my new apartment,
I think
I am an early riser,
so I walk
out of the door,
and see the soft pink glow
of the sun
before it rises,
and turn at the road,
strolling up to High Street,
where I cross the road
and walk back
to my apartment,
without having
a cigarette,
even though
I was prepared.

Summer meant
swimming and no school
but now it means
burning alive
outside
so I hibernate
indoors
in this air-conditioned house.

I have discovered
sitting outside
by the garden
on summer mornings
as I take photographs
and drink tea,
stand up
and meditate
with various
hand positions
as the neighbor
says good morning
by saying
"Hi, baby duck".

Tired body
from too little sleep
with a dream
of freakish animals
and odd men
so I sit uncomfortably
thinking.

I'm fickle
like
spring weather.

I'm being watched.
It's not paranoia.
I'm being watched.
You are looking at me.
I'm a poem.

A question was asked.
She answered.
     There was interest.
     Another question.
She began talking
about a presentation
that she was going to do.
     There was a response
     about the fear
     of public speaking.
She agreed, and both laughed.
     (that was social
      ******* with
      no interruption and
      neither person
      talked too much,
      or too little)
     (both felt better).

Music talks to me
and it bugs me
sometimes
because the message
is not so great,
but sound
doesn't say anything
and I listen
a lot
to the noise
of the world
that, to me,
sounds like music,
but the radio
plays music
that talks
and the message
is not all that great,

(but I love it anyway).

The anti-way is well portrayed
on the cathode ray tube
plugged into millions
who let it pour
into their tired brains,
so for awhile,
like two minutes,
I turn it on
to find out
what the hell
it thinks,
and there are murders
and happy salesman
and bigfoot
and pictures of Jamaica
so I say,
"Oh...that's what
it's about..."

I woke up today,
realizing
that if I hadn't
gone to psychiatrists,
and studied religion,
and worked hard
for many years
at Zen,
that I probably
would have been
one of those guys
who gets a gun
and shoots a lot of people
and then turns it
on himself
and blows his brains out,
because I think
that I have lived
a hundred lifetimes
before this one
as a victim of torture
and therefore
was pushed to the limit,
but instead of becoming
a suicidal ******-murderer,
I became
some sort of
love, peace and happiness
Bodhisattva,
so instead of criticizing Zen
and psychiatry,
like I usually do,
I'm praising them.

Naturally, I don't know
anything about this
but it has occurred to me
that maybe we have it all wrong
about the Anti-Christ
like maybe he or she
is not so bad after all
since it is God,
whoever that is,
that wants to **** us all
because he's probably
the big everything
so what he says goes
and God and His Son
then, have some idea,
according to the Bible
to **** just about all of us
so maybe the Anti-Christ
is some man or woman
who wants to save us all
and this 666 stuff,
which is the sign of the beast
is the sign of the animals
because animals are beasts
so he or she wants to save
all of the animals, too,
of course, the poor Anti-Christ
doesn't stand a chance
against the big everything
who can do whatever he wants
so maybe we've got it all wrong
about this stuff.

When I was young,
I thought
that the only artists
that there were,
were the famous ones
that I heard about,
because there is this
illusion
in our culture
that the famous people
are the only visible people,
so I thought
that if I grew up
and became
an artist, poet, composer,
musician, dancer, photographer,
etc.
that I would be
one of the famous ones,
but what I didn't know
was that for every one
of the famous ones,
there are zillions
of people on the bottom,
who can't get anywhere,
who work at the arts
for their entire lives
and their stuff winds up
in the dumpster,
and I found out
that there are very few of us
who wind up
like Van Gogh, too,
like that our art
becomes famous
after we die,
so it's the one percent
and ninety nine percent
law
of our culture
that applies to the economy
and also to this thing
that I am involved with
called art.
Good Luck!

They didn't tell me about the artists who are on the bottom.
I thought all artists were famous.
I thought the art life was something to write home about.
I didn't know about the artists who lived with Mom
and hung out in the basement.
I didn't know about the artists who lived in the street.
There seem to be two or so people who are artists who are on the top.
They are the only ones that people know about.
There are millions of artists in between.
They have shows and readings and performances and stuff.
We don't seem to know about the ones who are on the bottom.
It's slow down here.

So the Bodhisattva said
"Emptiness is none other than form,
form is none other than emptiness"
and I have perceived
this emptiness
through years of Yoga and Zen
but the real understanding
which I have gained
about what emptiness is
and how to perceive it
can be done
in a blink,
because the greatest expression
of emptiness
is to look
at what is in front of you
at this very moment,
because at that point
the emptiness of it
is so empty
that is doesn't exist,
this space between atoms
is so empty
that you can't even perceive it,
so there,
you are now
an enlightened Buddha
with a knowledge
and perception
of the Awesome Emptiness
Of Everything.
Congratulations!

All of my life I have been afraid of The One Truly Bad Thing.
Death.
With the help of my religion, however, I seem to have come to terms with it.
There is, though, the thing that most of us are even more afraid of.
The One Truly Bad Thing Which Leads Up To The One Truly Bad Thing.
That is the thing like cancer or heart attack or stroke or car accident or getting shot by a ******.
This is the thing that really hurts.
I can't seem to come to complete terms with this even with the help of my religion.
Then there is that other Bad Thing.
This is the thing that is so bad that it freaks everybody out.
The End Of The World!
I don't know about this.
But, you know, the dinosaurs died.
One thing that I do know is that if you watch the media, you might think that it's coming, but if you don't, if you just watch the everyday world, you probably won't think it's coming.
I suppose we could explode because some star goes supernova or something, or the north pole becomes the south pole or something, but I don't know.
Actually, not knowing has saved me thus far.
Sure does seem like there are more Bad Things than Good Things on this planet, but if you think like I do, that every moment of life is a Good Thing, then it's not so bad.
I don't know, most people don't think so.

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it

Sometimes it's hard
Sometimes it's hard
Sometimes it's easy
Sometimes it's easy

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it

Sometimes it's hard
Sometimes it's easy
Either way
I love it

Everyday life
Everyday life
Everyday life
I love it!

(I'm washing my brain)

Sometimes,
the best teachers
in our lives
are the dumbest.
I include
the mean guys
and the mean girls.
And let's not forget
the mentally ill.

We're all homesick
for the black hole
where we once lived
before the big bang
but now we are on
this spaceship planet
exploring infinity
for eternity.

When I was a kid
the news of a cold war
was everywhere
and they were going
to bury us
so every time
an airplane flew over
or a test plane
made a sonic boom
I thought it was
the end
and then the presidents
got into an argument
over missiles
and everybody thought
it would be
the end
but one backed down
and the bombs
weren't dropped.

Sometimes I'm the boss
and sometimes he's the boss
so we get along pretty good
and sometimes we're both bosses
and sometimes neither of us
are bosses so everything
is just peachy.

With morning coffee
in hand
I feel depressed
so I ask the Buddha inside
to make me happy
and so
he does!

The crazy man seems to hate his mind.
The Zen man loves his mind.
The crazy man doesn't know, and is confused about it.
The Zen man doesn't know.
The crazy man laughs and says, "It's an imperfectly perfect world!".
The Zen man laughs and says the same thing.
The crazy man is unhappy with his life.
The Zen man is happy with his life, most of the time.
The crazy man hears voices.
The Zen man is a voice-hearer.
I know about this
because I have been
both.

There is a cyclic nature to my life.
A wave pattern.
At the bottom of the wave is a psychic prison.
In the prison, I experience a trial.
A metal moment.
This last one was a day and a half long.
I woke up free this morning.

There are dark places
in my mind
where my thoughts
if left to themselves
will be drawn
because these places
have a wound inside of them
that requires healing
but when my thoughts
fly into the dark places
the wounds bleed
and they become painful
so the obvious answer
is to be careful
of where the thoughts
are flying
and guide them
to the better places
like the areas
of humor
and poetry.

Like us
the doctors
don't know
what they're doing
as they see us
for five minutes
and determine
how our health is
according to a norm
which is thought
to be good
for everybody.

but I was not paying
close enough attention
to really remember
the closing of the door

that has books
attached to it
resting in a white metal
     mesh

so I must remind myself
to always be awake!

I was in my chair
outside, on the patio,
when I thought
I would have ***
with my lover Earth,
so remembering
Kurt Vonnegut's
interesting kind of ***
where the two lovers
put their feet together,
I put my feet
on my lover's feet,
and Bam
what a feeling!
so she suggested
that I go eat some dirt
as a kind of communion,
so I watered my **** garden
remembering
that the Earth laughs
in weeds,
and watered the other garden
remembering
that the Earth is dirt,
so I ate
a little pinch
of dirt,
and then she told me,
"Don't worry
about the men
who frack me
and **** me,
I love them
and will give you all
everything,
because there's always more
where that came from."

I lost
at everything
in life
and wound up
in Nirvana.

Come on  Earl,
let's go to the best
bar in town
and I'll buy you a beer.

                **** no. I don't
                have any money
                and you don't
                have any either.

Oh, come on Earl,
when I first saw you
I thought, I'd really like
to have a beer

with that guy.
                **** no. All I've got
                is some change.
                I don't want

                any money.
                I don't need
                any money.
Tell you what.

You give me
fifty cents,
and I'll buy you
a beer in the best

bar in town.
                OK, it's a deal.
                (He reached into his pocket,
                pulled out his hand full of change,

and gave me two quarters.
I took them gratefully
and put them away.
We walked to the bar.

Buddha taught
that life is an illusion
as did
the Beatles
so after a nap
I woke up
facing the gate
in my mind
of this teaching
and instead
of not getting hung up
I got nervous
thinking that this reality
as I know it
is not real
so here I am now
on this paradigm of illusion
called the computer
and sometimes
the only way
to pass through
these Dharma gates
is to forget about them.

The monk
received
a box
on his birthday,
and it was
a special gift
from his brother monks,
so, he knew
that it was something special,
so, with a little nervousness,
he carefully opened the box
and saw that it was empty,
and with great joy
and happiness
he exclaimed,
"Nothing!
Just what I wanted!"

I have been severely deluded for my whole life.
I have been hoping for The One Truly Good Thing to happen.
I have been desiring a Good Thing all the time.
I have realized that there is no Good Thing.
It is a delusion.
The television sells the Good Thing as, for example, a fast food fish sandwich.
"You can search the whole world, and never find anything as good as this fish sandwich."
**.
I had a desire today for a Good Thing.
Something like The Best *** or something.
When The Good Thing does come, it's not really that Good.
And it passes as soon as it's over with.
If it's something like Winning The Lottery, sometimes that can even go bad.
If it's something like Getting The Big Break or Making Your Dreams Come True, sometimes that can even go bad.
Waiting For Your Ship To Come In is a mistake.
Today, I have decided for myself that the Good Thing is already here.
This moment and each moment is the Good Thing.
I just don't usually realize it because I have a headache.

I say
loose/tense/tense/loose
inside
with a high note
and a low note
on my breath
and why
do I do this?
The Great Equality.

The old guys
wrote about
the great outdoors
and the beauty of nature,
but, you know,
nature may become
completely inhospitable
sooner than we think,
so I suggest
that we should start
thinking about
the great indoors,
and the beauty of artificiality,
because artificial things
are none other
than nature, transformed,
so maybe
we should go
on adventures
in our own houses
like a modern Thoreau,
who finds the transcendent
in a cup of coffee
or a telephone.

My sister
was sewing
like a little mom
as I sat, rocking,
on the sofa
terrified
of a song
about garbage.

This morning,
I woke up feeling bitter
about life
and it was
a bad chemistry,
so, later,
since my mind
is pointed
toward love,
it changed
and the chemistry got
a little better,
but this morning
I decided
that the best chemistry
is the chemistry of indifference,
but not the kind
of indifference that rejects,
like you usually know about,
but the kind of indifference
that accepts,
like "It is what it is
and that's what it is",
so this chemistry
was the best I could muster,
so, I'm sitting here now,
listening to the birds
and feeling a bit indifferent
to life in general
but in a good way,
like OK,
so this is the way it is,
so ok.

The mood lighting
of early morning
in the poetry office
shines its light
on the ***** ashtray
where two bent cigarette butts
are resting
waiting to be thrown away.

When I get out of bed
at night,
the mind is quite nuts
because it is on auto-pilot,
and stuck in an in-between
dream and awakening state,
and the autonomic nervous system
is what is working,
in it's automatic way,
but I get nervous
that maybe some demons
crawled into my ears
while I was asleep,
so I begin to meditate,
and that calms me,
but I shouldn't be afraid
of that lizard mind
because it could well
be illuminating.

Life is
being
a being
in a big place
doing one thing
after another
for about eighty years.
Mystery solved!

The nose is followed
because one can hear
its silent knowledge.

Nice.

No waste here     in the office
of poetry     where we gain some

wisdom, of     course, I don't know
what that is, but     I sort of do.

When the pen     runs out of ink, fix
the thing and then     write again.

Lately,
I have been
analyzing
the beer trip,
so it starts
with the thought
of having a beer,
and since
I am not one
to jump right in,
I think
before I drink,
and then
if I decide
to have one,
I get in the car
and drive to the store
and buy one
and bring it home,
and then
when I crack the can,
the beer wave starts,
and it starts
with the attack,
which is the actual drinking,
and after about five minutes,
I feel the wooziness,
which is the high,
so then the actual drinking
takes about fifteen minutes,
and then the sustain part
of the wave begins,
so for about fifteen more minutes
I feel great
and woozy and high and wonderful,
and then after that,
the decay part starts,
and for about a half an hour,
I feel pretty good,
but the woozy feeling
kind of changes
and the feeling
is not as good,
and then after that,
the release part
of the beer wave begins,
and lasts for about an hour,
and that's when
I get a headache,
and the wooziness
becomes sleepiness,
and I feel kind of ******,
so then after that hour
is over,
I'm back to my old self again,
but with a little residue
of beeriness left,
which will last
possibly
for about three days,
so that's
riding the one beer wave,
except that I did it
with understanding.