In the corner of the living room
is a bookcase and on it
sits a group of Buddhas from
China, Hong Kong, Burma, Thailand.
They are a tranquil group,
too serious and serene
to talk about here.
Below them are two shelves
filled with books about
Zen and meditation, sutras,
discourses on consciousness,
clarity, compassion, emptiness;
a collection of educative texts.
Some of them I’ve read
from cover to cover;
others I’ve only dipped into;
some are impenetrable
and barely looked at;
all they have is mass.
What I want to say
about my extensive store
of books about Zen, etc,
is that, except for one or two
that still engage me,
they’re all gathering dust.
I’m not a bad man, anymore;
if ever I was; my life is honest
and bare of useless frivolity.
My early morning routine
of T’ai Chi, calisthenics, meditation,
mostly keeps sorrow and regret at bay.
After sitting meditation
I grind some coffee beans—
from Yemen & Indonesia—
and brew up a cup of fairy dust,
then go upstairs to wake my wife
and read the news on the BBC.
I skate across Facebook
and wonder why I bother,
then I write until it’s time
to wake up child Owain
with kisses & sweet words
to entice him out of his dreams.
My daily routine + coffee
is a wonderful laxative
& my bowels move every day.
These days when I sit
on the toilet I read
& relax & dump.
Years ago, when I lived with monks,
I was having a poo one morning,
struggling with it too, when a voice
from the cubicle next to mine
said, in a California drawl:
Relax man, don’t force it!
I was mortified that someone
had been eavesdropping
on my laboured exertions;
but it was a piece of sensible
advice that had been offered,
to try and shit sans strain.
I’ve never forgotten his words,
though I haven’t always
observed that good advice.
These days all I can read
while I’m taking a dump
is poetry; one poem per sit.
I can’t get into verse
if I’m not able to relax;
so I can’t read poetry
anywhere but the toilet,
but that’s neither
here nor there.
The poems I’m reading just now
were written by a 14th century
Chinese recluse: Stonehouse.
I read them a page at a time;
and they move me in a way
Zen texts never seem to.
Stonehouse was a Chan hermit
who lived on a mountain top
in a shack he built himself;
he grew his own vegetables
and sold firewood to buy tea
& other stuff he needed.
He says things like this:
I meditate alone in the quiet and dark
where nothing comes to mind
I sweep the steps when the west wind is done
I make a path for the moonlight[1]
These are very simple words.
All his verses are like that;
no fancy stuff; just Stonehouse
pottering about round his hut,
taking delight in what he sees;
eating the food he grows;
staying warm in winter.
I weigh this old man’s poetry,
a page at a time, a day at a time;
his solitary life among the clouds
and mountains he loved absorbs me
so much I can’t help myself:
I have to write poetry too.
*
[1] The Zen Works of Stonehouse: The Poems and Talks of a 14th-Century Chinese Hermit; translated by Red Pine; publisher Counterpoint, Berkeley, California.
Endless Buddhas 
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