Already There

By Zen Name

"As clear-seeing as a dustless mirror angled into a school of sun fish, the tiny poems of this book carry a multitude of reflections bright as mica, consummately free in spirit, and in equal measure comic and profound." -Jane Hirshfield, poet, translator, essayist After-"Best Book of 2006," Washington Post "Just what we need, and just when we need it: a holy madcap who wears ancestor Ikkyu's sandal for a rain hat, meets the world with wonder, laughs himself and everyone else awake, and prays your name like the petals of a rosary. When you look for him, he disappears; when you forget him completely, he startles you with a kiss. Richard Weekley's Already There is right on time." -Peter Levitt, author of Within Within and Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom in addition to other books of poetry and translation, and founding teacher of Salt Spring Zen Circle on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia "...Zen Nam frolics down the trail of life, tossing petals of wisdom in his whimsical wake... reminding us it is the journey that matters because the arrival never comes." -Donald McLeod, widely published haiku poet and Butoh Artist (www.zenbutoh.com) Winner of the Haiku Society of America's International Book Award

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Stefan Strozier
• Release date: Apr 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781935444473

Book preview

FORWARD

Zen Nam is the alter-egolessness of an urban poet sage. Zen Nam acrobatically vaults between noumenal and phenomenal states of being with biting humor, deeply intelligent sensitivity, and an awakened eye for the overlooked suchness of peripheral happenings.

He is the laughing Buddha merged with Shiva's endless cosmic dance. In the spirit of Basho and Brautigan ... Zen Nam frolics down the trail of life, tossing petals of wisdom in his whimsical wake ... reminding us it is the journey that matters because the arrival never comes.

— Donald McLeod

(Haiku poet and Butoh artist,www.zenbutoh.com)

PREFACE

Dedicated to

Bahia Todos Los Santos

Who Taught Zen Zen

Before the robes, the tans, the zabutans, the bows.

With its

Mist, dew, and all night utterance: Smooth black stones chittering Into sand.

a poem of introduction

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Terms:

Koan – a paradoxical anecdote or riddle used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment

Satori – sudden enlightenment

The Way – The path, the nature, the process of the universe (Taoism and Zen)

Zazen – Zen sitting meditation

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7

To See Everything Just As Atoms

Not as pillow and bed:

To see everything just as atoms:

The sky, A knife, A kiss, A stone.

To see everything just as atoms

All wearing their ephemeral Buddha nature: The butterfly wing,

The bicycle wheel Moonlight, Sonata #5.

*Many of the poetic GLIMPSES herein are less than 17 syllables and are called Senryus or simply short perceptive wisps of language with emotive resonance.

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