Before the Haircut

Warmth rising on the neck
Slick cuffs cool the wrists
It is the third quarter moon of December.
Tomorrow we become monks.
We have arrived in the middle of nowhere
And here we are.

The body is a fog, here now, soon gone
Sensations are waves, with a foam crest
Of perceptions. In the mind this world
And the next, birth and death, love and hate
Play pick-up sticks with the bone of reality
On fenceless mud fields of consciousness.
None of it is real, and yet there is suffering.

Ensconced without a self amidst beings
Formed and formless, the Sangha
Casts its web of pure energy, piercing
The sham framework of space and time,
Splaying bare what is.

Breathing in, we are one.
Breathing out, one is all.

A brother passes the window,
He looking, me looking.
He is a cloud sprung from a womb of earth.
Deep in his eyes I see the vapor
Of thinking vanish in a glow
That shines from the heart of emptiness.

Breathing in, I know I do not know.
Breathing out, what am I?

Our ancestral teacher has no name
Has no teaching, has no form.
His breath cools the fire of thoughts
His hand calms the tempest in the mind
His smile speaks of neither pleasure nor pain,
Nowhere to be found, and not ever to be lost.
Smile and say, “Good morning, Thay.”

Breathing in, rain drops on rock moss
Breathing out, a finch chirps on a bare limb.