Fish Tank: A poem

Fish Tank
by me

Red-tailed Black Shark
Buffalo Head Cichlid
Little gods of war

They are conquerors
Alexander the Great
Napoleon reborn

Building empires
Like Genghis Khan and Caesar
They are warriors

A timeless battle
Between Indra and Mars
Fish tank warfare

Ashtavakra Gita: 18.51

18.51

When one realizes
he is neither the actor
nor the one who watches,
the mind-storm is stilled.

Buddha says...

If you compassion doesn’t include yourself it is incomplete.

–Buddha

J. Kitchens

Most of us go through each day
looking for what we saw yesterday. And,
not surprisingly, this is what we find.

-James A. Kitchens

Tao Te Ching (Ch 7, 11, and 51)

Excerpts from...
Tao Te Ching
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Chapter 7
The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Chapter 11
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Chapter 51
Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao.

The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.

T. McKenna

We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.

-Terrance McKenna, The Archaic Revival (1991)

W. Whitman

Happiness…not in another place, but in this place…not for another hour, but this hour.

-Walt Whitman

Lightbulb

Question: How many Zen Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Three - one to change it, one to not-change it, and one to both change and not change it.

Hah

Fenyang

Few people believe their
Inherent mind is Buddha.
Most will not take this seriously,
And therefore are cramped.
They are wrapped up in illusions, cravings,
Resentments, and other afflictions,
All because they love the cave of ignorance.
-Fenyang