How to Meditate

sit on the ground as close
to the longest widest wildest river
you can find

sit as close as you dare

pick a rock in the river
something bigger than a grain
smaller than the mountain range--

any boulder will do--

rest your mind inside the rock

foreswear all desire to follow the water
up to its source in the belly of the mountain
down to its outpouring place by the sea

abide until you feel the thunder
of snow melt parting around you

until the slightest flick of the merest fingerling
quivers your flanks

sit like this for a millennia or two

after a while a crack will appear
the haste of stone the stillness of river
and swallow you

no one no where

adrift in earth rooted in stars

Kwan Yin in Vegas

Kwan Yin says, deal me in.

Kwan Yin says, keep your hands on the table
where I can see them.

Kwan Yin says, no table, no hands--then what?

HEY!

Keep your head in the game--deal me in.

Yong Maeng Jong Jin (to leap like a tiger while sitting)

Every morning I vow
not to waste another minute

Every minute my mind
wanders away

I don’t know whether to pity or envy the pigeons
endless fucking under the eaves of Gruber’s house

Sun begins another prostration
108 times 108 times 108 equals

Stone bodhisattva swallowing
all shadow, all light, bird song, birds

Where do they go?

KATZ!

Gruber’s cat cries at the dharma room door.

Geese at Olcott (after Yeats)

“You say they have flown away, […] but all the same they have been here from the very beginning” D.T. Suzuki

I only saw them once.
I didn’t bother to count them.
Nor did I ask about their matrimonial habits.

But I liked them: the plump bodies,
The elegant almost arrogant rise of the necks
The way they kept a certain distance

Waddling faster and faster as I approached
Until inevitably they rose into low flight
That ended on the next patch of lawn.

Their consternation too was eloquent
A ceaseless cascade of disgruntled
Grunts and hisses and honks—

calling to mind their wild cousins who cross continents
North to south, south to north. Sometimes,
Hearing them, I’ll run outside to gawk—

Loving best the stragglers, the geese who fly late
At night, late in the season, high overhead—
Between us miles of clouds—

But still they call and still I listen—
Those loud lovely encouragers—
All I know of transcendence.

Christina Hauck
Wheaton, Illinois