Beatrice Lane Kamakura, 1915. Today I read a student essay which cited B.L. Suzuki. I was intrigued. B.L.? In college I learned about two giants of 20th century Buddhism: Shunryu Suzuki and D.T. Suzuki. I remember many times mixing them up or naively conflating them into a single person. I later did the same with […]
Month: December 2018
There is a Hush
There is a hushfrom the beginningof time, where youcan hear yourselfblink. It’s calledimmortality. The rumbling timbers. Those extinct tracks. There is a hush, it is the sound of the desert parsleywithering and thewhimpers of hawksand eagles careeningtowards the earthrise. There is a hush, sunk into the chasms,bringing a curse thatcan never be lifted. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from […]
The Way Galileo Saw It
When I look up I see the quiet survivalof the solar system. I see the outbursts ofconstellations andthe disturbing meaningof the Milky Way. When I look up I see the penetration of thecorona, a universe of stars,the way Galileo saw it, all ionized and catastrophic. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has […]
Are Vegetarian Diets Becoming a Global Trend?
Sun Ma It seems that the world is slowly but surely becoming vegetarian. According to some surveys, the percentage of vegetarian population (including ovo-lacto vegetarians) in various countries is rising. At the top of the list, at least according to some references listed on Wikipedia, is India, with 38% of Indians being vegetarians. Other countries […]
Grace Peak
Down where fingershold a windscourged turbulence,lurid and buriedin the fractures, your mountain graceblisters like iron smelted, and the mosaic of youreyes light all over.Wrapped in cold teardrops,below the grit of exiled scents, at your peak I feel astronomical, like Asimov’s balloons risingthrough a diaphanous fog. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in […]
Something Rather Than Nothing
Before slavery,oceans swept awayshadowsof sand pyramids. Before peace,there was just volcanicash on the seabeds- the color of Confederategray, like the eyes of a lost husky. Before the masters of war,there were border walls madeof barren clouds, ribbed and lifeless- above a million stillborn valleys. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work […]
After the Flowers
Into the hush a motherneeds when she strokesthe soft temples of her infantson, outside the dewdropsemerge once more. After theflowers are gone, on a blanketof peat moss, feeding the frogsand snakes, they emerge,hurtling toward the starvedemptiness of another daybreak. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, […]
The Great Deeds of Gautami: The Achievements of the First Buddhist Nun
Buddha Shakyamuni with Mahaprajapati Gautami. From dhamma-stream.blogspot.com The stories of a number of nuns (Skt. bhikshuni) in early Buddhism were written down in various parts of the Pali Buddhist scriptures, especially in the Therigatha, commonly translated as Verses of the Elder Nuns, composed about 600 BCE, and also in the Theri Apadana or The Great […]
Tea by the Batten Kill
Rinsing away theworld, from a widow’speak above the Batten Kill, with a cup of rose tips, everything burned leavesthe fragrance of her dried lips,like old questions interrupted. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, […]
Mahaprajapati Gautami: The First Buddhist Nun
Statue of Mahaprajapati Gautami at Upaya Zen Center, USA. From womeninbuddhismtour-india.blogspot.com Mahaprajapati Gautami was the aunt and foster mother of prince Siddhartha. She raised him after the death of her sister, the Buddha’s mother: Mayadevi. The meaning of the Sanskrit name Mahaprajapati is “The great patroness of all beings” and Gautami is the female equivalent […]