Stop trying
    to understand others
    time you'll be wasting
    all this will only cause your distress-

    this is the course that's deemed best
    seeking to understand your own self
     such insight and clarity will bring you true rest
     and nothing else will you need to delve

We need an Age of Innocence
    civilisation is in moral collapse:
    men are against their fellowmen
    kindness and humanity are at their lowest ebb --

   we the ordinary folk have no say
   all we desire is happiness and peace
   all that's before us is the untold agony
   and tears-- our hopes fall away piece by piece-

   who will save us from the apocalypse ?
   How will mend the hearts in brokenness ?
   Will our prayers be heard and answered?
   When will we return to grace and blessedness?

   We need--urgently- an Age of Innocence
   how we weep over the tragedy before us!
   When will light appear in our direst hour
   of need, to dispel this unbearable darkness?

Those who know
how to be lazy
tend to be more happy:
the art of constructive idleness
is not known to many

He who's empty
  has no fear:
  there's nothing
  to be taken away
  he holds nothing dear-
  
life is illusive
like will-o'-the-wisp
to have dreams
is to be deceived-

he who's empty
doesn't seek to compete
win or achieve
in being nothing
he doesn't lose anything-
unseen, unknown and unnoticed
he retains his life's intrinsic

Self-forgetting is a great virtue
a new world it opens up
spontaneity spawns creativity
full is life's daily cup-

such is the essence of Zen
self-remembering tends to obstruct
innocence loses its purity
all endeavour will miss its mark

Time shall not control
or command me
I don't live for it
I'm independent and free-

my life I carve
patiently and diligently
at my clock I don't look
I stop only when I'm weary-

my own programme
I set meticulously
minutes and hours
that pass, they don't bother me

outside my window I look
the day's light is fading away gently
as evening follows in logical sequence
my work I've done-- tonight I'll sleep soundly.

He is to be measured--man-
   only at his very end
  the beginning and the in-between
  are mere interludes--Amen!