back to the empty streets !

I walk the empty streets tonight
Paddling my way through lazy thoughts littered around me.
This way and that I see how I try to grasp, and contain,
The wispy reality which is but a dream I saw tomorrow.

There is an urge in all man
And when it finds itself fulfilled
By the way a branch twists into the open sky,
By the way a cloud embraces the mountain top for a halting retreat
By the way a bird flutters its wings open,
Then and there, this and that Meet
And the journey of a thousand miles is finished in one step.

I am back again on the empty streets,
Thoughts wetted by the rain, join the stream
Into the drain.
The rent is paid and the celebration continues!

no water, no moon !

The full moon in the chair
Whats that over there
The moon!

you and me

In withered words
Your story speaks
Through little streams
And nuggets 
Placed in magenta colors

I feel the winds through you
The suns warmth 
And many more such stories told
By many many more of your 
Leafy lores

Swinging your last dance
Upon the rivers edge
Flittering by now here and now there
Not here nor there
You collapse gently
Upon earths floor

With aged stories in you
In you, my love
In you no more

a note

I found your face through a crowd of lies

I found your face beyond others’ eyes

I looked through the lines between my thoughts

and found the host celebrating.

Seeing you AS you are

Bare backed and naked

Youth screaming from under your aged face

Reveling in the sundry mistakes of everyday life

Snatching the horizon’s sun and bringing it to the table

Within a glass of cold sake,

I hesitated.

I know you and me are distinctly similar

Like a mirror

That proposes to seduce me with the dewy moment

And promises of dancing close to my bare chest

That you have always kept – I know.

I am with you in the night, all life

Waiting to embrace you.

I turn towards you my lover

With sake drenched lips

The beast of purpose and plan

spends himself to exhaustion meanwhile

because when I locked eyes with you through that crowd

the choice of turning back vanished with it.

black chalk, white chalk in the sky

A bridge beneath my feet

black chalk, white chalk
in the sky
sketched wildly
time flies by

the river lies untouched
with this leap of faith
here the river, there the painting
i turn to the painting
black chalk, white chalk
in the sky

ABC of Enlightenment !

Existence loves you!

Gautam Buddha was insulted once. He was passing by a village, and the villagers were very against him. It was impossible for them to comprehend what he was teaching. Compared to the buddhas, the whole world is always very primitive, very unsophisticated, very stupid. The people gathered and insulted him very much. Buddha listened very silently and then he said, "If you are finished, can I take leave of you, because I have to reach the other village, and they must be waiting for me.

You are not finished, then when I return tomorrow morning you can come again and finish your job." One man from the crowd asked, "Have you not heard us? We have been insulting you, abusing you. We have been using all kinds of dirty words, anything that we can find."

Buddha laughed. He said, "You have come a little too late -- you should have come ten years ago. Then I was in the same frame of mind as you are; then I would have replied, and replied well. But now this is simply an opportunity for me to be compassionate, to be meditative. I am thankful to you that you allowed me this opportunity. This is just a test -- a test of whether or not I have anything of the negative lurking anywhere in my unconscious mind.

"And I am happy to declare to you, friends, that not even a single shadow of the negative has passed through my mind. I have remained utterly blissful, you have not been able to affect me in any way. And I am tremendously happy that you gave me such a great opportunity. Very few people are as kind as you are."

This is how one should use situations, this is how a sannyasin should use negative opportunities for inner growth, for inner understanding, for meditativeness, for love, for compassion. And once you have learned this happy frame of mind, this positive vision of life, you will be surprised that the whole existence starts functioning in a totally different way. It starts mothering you. It starts helping you in every possible way, it becomes a great friend. And to know this is to know God.

To know this, that existence mothers you, is to know God. There is no other God -- just this feeling, this tremendous feeling, this penetrating feeling, that the existence loves you, protects you, helps you and showers many many blessings on you; that the existence is graceful towards you, that you are not alienated, that you are not a stranger, that this is your home. To feel that "This existence is my home" is to know god.