Poem for Buddha’s Enlightenment Day 2009

Return to Winter 2010-2011

Becoming acquainted with old age,
sickness and death,
Shakyamuni jumped over the palace wall,
leaving behind family, wealth, comfort,
and power.

Sometimes a good situation is a bad situation.
Comment: Gold dust in the eye hinders vision
and gold chains still confine.

For several years he practiced like a
Fierce lion following the style of the teachers of the time.
Torturing and starving the body didn’t
produce much merit or wisdom,
only exhaustion and despair.

Sometimes a bad situation is just
a bad situation.
Comment: Trying to reach the south
by heading north, you never arrive.

A young cowherd girl offering
milk and rice pointed him toward
the middle way.
How embarrassing, the Great Ascetic is
defeated by the milkmaid.

Sometimes a bad situation is a good situation.
Comment: The Bodhisattva of compassion
reveals herself in many forms.

Resolutely sitting under the Bodhi tree
Enlightenment appeared.
Did Gotama put out the light of
a distant star, or did the star
extinguish Gotama?
What kind of experience did Shakyamuni
get?
AH! Wonderful star?...
I and all beings are already awakened
From the Start?...
The net of interconnection is wide and vast?...
Tell me Tell me!

Man Gong Zen Master said: “Buddha saw
a star got enlightenment. Man Gong
saw a star and lost enlightenment.”
Got and lost, Good situation and bad situation,
Enlightened and unenlightened all come
from where?

KATZ!!

Today is Saturday December 5, 2009.
The leaves have already fallen
from the trees, Golden wind fills the air.

by Zen Master Wu Kwang