Leaves fall
where no green earth remains:
a person at his ease,
wears a plain, white robe.
With simplicity and plainness
his original nature still,
what need to practice
“calming of the heart?”
– Chia-Tao
Leaves Fall
Reply
Tag Archives: Zen poem
Spring Flowers
Spring flowers, the autumn moon;
Summer breezes, winter snow.
If useless things do not clutter your mind,
You have the best season of your life.
-Wu Men
Where Are the Flowers?
If you break open the cherry tree,
Where are the flowers?
But in the spring time, see how they bloom!
– Ikkyu
Nowhere Can Dust Collect
Enlightenment is basically not a tree,
And the clear mirror is not a stand.
Fundamentally there is not a single thing –
Where can dust collect.
– Huineng, Sixth Zen Patriarch in China, 638-713
Wind and Clouds
The wind traverses the vast sky,
clouds emerge from the mountains;
Feelings of enlightenment and things of the world
are of no concern at all.
~ Zen Master Keizan Jõkin
A Single Family
In a moonlit night on a spring day,
The croak of a frog
Pierces through the whole cosmos and turns it into
a single family!
-Chang Chiu-ch’en
Frog in Spring
The Whole World Will Shine
The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He’ll never give up.
If he’d let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
Hakuin
Yellow Leaf
Photography by Lisa Ernst
The Lotus Blooms in The Mud 