skip to main content

Moments:
This Spring Evening

2-4 minutes read
A black and white pocket printer style photo of sunlight reflections on patches of the road that is stretching far away.

oh, this bumpy ride…
sunlight reflections
on the road


Everything I’ve gained, I joyfully surrender!
Every step I take, I’m moving with the world.

—An excerpt from the “Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva” chant
Chants and Sutras, Zen Community of Oregon

Why rush?

unhurried
the pale moon above
a traffic jam

A black and white pocket printer style photo of cars in a traffic jam taken from inside a car. Above the photo, there is a simple circle painted in ink depicting the moon.

…before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisatta, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought what was also subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement. Then I considered thus: ‘Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement?

—The Buddha
MN 26

A bell at sunset
no one to hear it
this spring evening

—Basho
David Young, Moon Woke Me Up Nine Times

A sumi-e painting of a tea pot