Pushing my mother
in her wheelchair
through the forest
in the park,
I see my sister
picking up a leaf
and handing it
to mom
who asks
what should I do with it
and I suggest
using it
as a bookmark
for her daily words
and so I put the red leaf
in her pocket
and we roll on.

Two of my Zen friends
who, at the time,
I thought were some kind
of Zen enemies,
seemed to condemn me
to a soap opera
of eternal cookies
and the sound of lawnmowers,
and it took me
forty-some years
to understand this koan,
and the suburban heaven
that I was condemned to,
where instead of a life
in the forest
with snakes and mosquitos,
or a life in the city
with rats and roaches,
I was given
a life in this quiet, rich suburb
with an air-conditioned summer
and a toasty warm winter,
so that surrealistic understanding
of cookie and lawnmower hell,
turned into everyday Nirvana.

Welcome to the age
of information
when we are blessed
by wireless waves
passing through
our body/minds
and awakened
by the electronic chemistry
of the computer,
the television,
the radio,
all the little
electrical gizmos
which are everywhere,
so I wonder
what is this doing
to our brains?
so this is not a forest anymore
and it's no wonder
that we can't quieten our minds
no matter how we try
so why don't we just
learn to love
the new electromagnetic ocean
and float on our sea
of meaningless thoughts?

My Zen master said
that he had never heard
of the word "ego"
until he got to the States
so in Zen circles
I often hear
that the ego
is like some kind of enemy thing
or something like that
but I think
"Who is it that practices?
Who is it that takes Buddha vows?
Who is it that takes Bodhisattva vows?
Who is it that learns Dharma?
And really now,
who actually is it
that is our authentic self?"
to which I think
Ego!
so I would suggest
that you don't go pushing
your ego around,
it just might be
your Buddha.

They say
we all have
our down days
and I have
many depressed days
about twice a month
when the mind
gets sad, then angry,
then sad again,
but then one day
I wake up
and everything
is better,
and everyday life
becomes Nirvana to me
once again,
so I can't find
any cure
for this yoyoitis
except sitting alone,
smoking cigarettes,
and thinking.

I signed up
as a young hippie
on the side
of the losers
in the world,
the poor, the homeless,
the refugees, the starving,
the mentally ill, the physically disabled,
and so on
so that is where
I am,
on the losing side
here with us poor poets
who work long hours
for nothing,
but I figured it out
that even though
I am depressed
about my place in life,
this place is what I love
and the people
like me
are the people
that my heart goes out to,
so I'll try
to cheer up
because even if all is lost,
all is not lost.

Buddha taught
about "mere words"
since words
in one sense
are like numbers
without any real meaning
like they're all Greek to me
but I think
being something
like a poet
that words
can be powerful
with the capability
of transforming lives
by the process
of the links
that occur
in the mind,
connecting a myriad
of connotations
and denotation
that set off
a potent brain chemistry
that can make the difference
between a kind of sanity
and a kind of madness.