Mike, I've recently been reading Joan Tollifson and Alan Watts where they discuss the power of listening. Your poem expresses their wisdom beautifully and concisely. I am realizing that very wisdom as I write while listening to a bird singing and car driving past. As always, with gratitude for your meditations.
Ryokan was a Zen mendicant who spent much of his life in retreat in the mountains, In winter, he would walk from town to town with his begging bowl, where he would be given rice & food in return for sign painting as well as cartooning and ink drawings. He was known in the towns as a traveling therapist who helped resolve family issues.
Mike, I've recently been reading Joan Tollifson and Alan Watts where they discuss the power of listening. Your poem expresses their wisdom beautifully and concisely. I am realizing that very wisdom as I write while listening to a bird singing and car driving past. As always, with gratitude for your meditations.
Yes, the whole world is in that listening, indeed, the whole universe.
Of course the question is that if you listen to the falling rain is it telling you what a fool you've been?
Ryokan was a Zen mendicant who spent much of his life in retreat in the mountains, In winter, he would walk from town to town with his begging bowl, where he would be given rice & food in return for sign painting as well as cartooning and ink drawings. He was known in the towns as a traveling therapist who helped resolve family issues.
Here’s a poem by Ryokan, the mid-18th century Japanese Zen Monk:
Yes, I’m truly a fool
Living among trees and plants.
Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment —
This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.
I wade across streams with bony legs,
And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.
That’s my life,
And the world owes me nothing.