In the daffodil days, as a harsh western wind beats on our transient frames,
On the Ides of March, as the world burns with renewed aggression and new layers of senselessness, a flower blooms in the heartmind of the ten thousand things,
indigestible flower of the Dharma, seeded through 80-100 generations,
witnessed by cancer cells and good cells alike, silent clockwork ticking along, teaching the
truth of time, for we are nothing but time dear friends, being killed slowly as we speak
while primroses & snowdrops & daffodils spring up in the season of foolish hope.
An evanescent flower blooms while silent legions push the daisies in the daffodil days, as a harsh western wind beats on our transient frames, dead poets and artists and mystics entrapped by sweet sounds and illusions of eternity.
A desire blooms in this fragile frame – to serve something I know precious little about, a dark shimmer of joy unbound and the ecstasy of friendship.
We are fellow-travellers in the ancient practice of Chao Chu, Hakuin, and master Dōgen. I had my lunch, now I wash my plate.
My baby head stroked so gently, so tenderly as I lean forward and dip my toes in the Dharma stream, and now I swim into the cold stream of life-and-death, and I have to tell you: to flounder in this sea is sweet to me.
No protection between earth and sky, unshielded and on a tight rope I hear the sound of that distant temple bell, I hear William Blake conversing with the spiritual sun on Primrose Hill as I burn my lips with hot coffee from the shop around the corner, just as the angel did who became human out of choice, a bodhisattva freezing his ass off on a cold spring day with a harsh western wind beating his transient frame. I bow nonetheless to the Buddhas and the Ancestors, to my fellow travellers of this great Dharma vessel whose other name may well be the Titanic. I bow to friends and foes, alive or dead, to humans and nonhumans, and like some makeshift pope I kiss the crust of this wounded planet, of this planet wounded anew by warmongers and climate change deniers.
As this transient frame is flooded by the beauty and power of the Dharma, may it travel to anyone whose heartmind opens on this Spring day.
I had my lunch, now let me wash your plate.