Old Man Winter Morning Zendo Poem

Old Man Winter Morning Zendo Poem

Morning zazen makes no sense at all, 

Absolutely no sense at all.

But I’m happy to be here, after practice,

Alive on my black cushion, bundled up

From a nagging sickness, sipping cold coffee,

Incense burned to ashes in the quiet,

Candles flickering, sunlight shadows

On the brown wall, and those silly pigeons,

They’re eating out of the cat dish again.

Ha! Good for them.

They don’t know right from wrong.

What better time to give thanks,

Thank you, thank you

A single grackle screeches out

Her love for me

And then she flies away.

In celebration of Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi's 70th Birthday

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Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher. 

Being just this moment, compassion’s way.  

―The Third and Fourth Principles of Practice as adapted by Charlotte Joko Beck and the Ordinary Mind School from the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths

You know, when you first start reading about Zen practice, you come across two visions of how to sit on a cushion, Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen. These are the two primary Japanese lineages. Each is pigeonholed into its own stereotype. Rinzai is the sterner practice, more martial in observance of all the rules, and Soto Zen is softer and more lenient in many ways. In Rinzai Zen, you sit zazen facing the sangha, you have regular sansen (interview with the teacher), the teacher gives you koans to break the hard walls of psyche, and the aim is to experience “kensho,” or sudden enlightenment. In Soto Zen, you sit facing the wall, you have irregular dokusan (interview with the teacher), and there is no aim, per se. You sit shikantaza, which means “just sitting.” The Soto lineage favors of what is called “gradual enlightenment.” Of course, in actual practice, especially here in the United States, the differences between the two lineages have faded away in some aspects, and really, the only way to find out the real differences, is to go sit with one group or another. If it’s true Zen practice, the foundation will always be zazen, sitting on a cushion (or chair, as your body requires), back straight, eyes open, breathing in and out, bringing the mind to the point of existence. 

Ha! The reason I wrote all of that is because of that little poem up above, “Old Man Winter Morning Zendo Poem.” I consider it a “Zen poem” because it speaks of my daily practice. But in high school and college, when I started reading about Zen poets and artists, I was always intrigued by how they had these sudden blasts of simultaneous insight and expression. Basho and his buddies would sit at the edge of a creek, getting drunk on sake and throwing down haiku and renga at each other in raucous laughter-filled dharma battles. The great calligraphers would approach a blank scroll with brush and ink, there would be a frenzied dervish swirling of arms, perhaps a shout and grunts, then, ZAP! And there it was! Another masterpiece!

Oh, I wanted to be like them. That was my romantic notion. Now I’m almost 75, and I want to say my Zen and writing of poetry is not like that at all. That’s not who I am. That’s not how I write poems. 

Every day I try to write in my journals. Mostly with my illegible (except to me) hand-writing. Sometimes on the computer. Sometimes even on my cell phone, talking, not writing, into the damn thing if I have idea, see or hear something that interests me. Anyway, from time to time I go through my journals and try to harvest poems. When I find something, I fiddle with it some, and, after a while, if I like it, I move it to my “poems in-progress” files.

Several weeks ago, I scribbled in my notebook about the silly pigeons eating out of the cat dish. When I finish my morning zazen, I can see them out there, finishing up what the cats didn’t eat. That irritates Lee and me, them eating the cat food and shitting all over the place. We wish the cats would do their job and harvest the pigeons but the cats don’t care about the pigeons. They are no longer hungry. They just watch the pigeons and dream ferocious cat dreams. That’s why we don’t feed the cats on the front porch anymore. It’s no fun to come home and see pigeon poop on the front porch. But one morning, after zazen, I looked out there at the pigeons and laughed at them. Silly birds, they don’t know right from wrong. Ha! I wrote that down. I took a sip of cold coffee. It was delicious.

Then one day at services, while we were finishing with the tea, one of our members had a question. She said a friend of hers was comparing Zen with another form of Buddhism. In Zen practice, the friend said, we don’t do anything. We just sit there. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” I had to laugh. Her friend was right, of course, because he was witnessing our practice only from the outside. And that’s what we do. We just sit there, staring at the wall. 

So this comment stuck with me. I wrote that down in my journal too. Then I remembered something I had been working on. I went to my journals and found this little piece about giving thanks for our practice. “Thank you, thank you.” All of this migrated into my “work-in-progess” files. I coupled that with the pigeons, right and wrong, and the idea about “making sense.” Then a few mornings later, a grackle showed up while I was sitting. It was one of those times during zazen when you hear something perfectly―my hearing the bird and the bird’s wild screech wrapped up together into one complete expression of existence. Not two. But one. That’s what Dogen means when he writes, “to be realized by the 10,000 things.” The grackle screeched out her love for me. Why not? She flew away. It all made sense. And I put it all these bits and pieces into this one little poem. 

When the poem was done, I liked it. It satisfied me somehow. And I like how it was made. Like following a mountain trail up and around to no place in particular. Except I need to pay attention. See the world clearly as it is. Otherwise, I’ll get lost for good. This is how I try to lead my life, following that mountain trail through the scrub and the trees, around the rocks, up through the rip-rap, vowing not to squander my life. So I decided to share the poem on our email list. Then yesterday morning, during zazen again, I remembered it was almost Harvey Daiho Hilbert’s birthday. He’ll be 70, so I need to give him thanks too. He was my teacher for all these many years. Thank you, Daiho, thank you, thank you. That’s what I want to say. To Harvey and to all those who have come before us. 

With our practice, 

We honor all those beings, 

Women and men, 

Known and unknown, 

Who have given their lives

To this practice 

For our present benefit. 

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So, yes, yes, thank you. Thank you. 

Bobby Kankin Byrd