PONDERING SELF
by Kuo Yin Henry

In this world 

the self is king,

We people give it

everything:

Money, food, sleep,

sex and fame.

We spoil it so it

wins the game.

Now most folks

never realize,

The self keeps

us living lives.

It takes desire

as its best friend--

A sure way to the hells in the end.

But yes! There is

another way.

Recognize the self

and say,

"Wait a minute

self you see,

I'm hip to you,"

and let it be.

Don't fight or

it will win.

Just pay it no mind

and look within.

KUAN YIN

by Kuo Chuan Slater

  She had grown accustomed to the sounds of the world. After all, that was her job. At first, a barely perceptible wrinkle in her forehead moved a little like that machine which measures heartbeats, serving as a n index of the intensity with which she heard.

  Little by little, her hearing sharpened until it grew more acute than the most delicate instruments. Sounds became amplified to the point where the brush of one jay's feathers on the planes of China echoed louder than a gunshot in her ear.

  Next she began to distinguish various noises: the mew of a particular cat, a certain hand upon a certain doorknob, the vibrations of a wheel in one old clock. Gradually, the languages of the world became like words in one tongue, and soon she had no trouble picking out a single voice. She could tell what bell was ringing in what tower. Each insect had a different buzz. The rain fell with a varied rhythm on the pear and lemon leaves.

  At first, of course, she suffered. She was always tired. Her head ached from the strain of catching the rattle of the hundredth screen door in the wind. The pain to which she was a witness could not help but bring her grief. Sometimes she wept for hours after hearing grown men cry.

  By and by, she even came to know the silence. There was no kind she could not identify: human silence,  water silence, silences before a storm. She became familiar with the pauses between brothers, and that hush became another form of noise.

  After a long while, she started hearing even the sound of her own brain, and now at last, there was no difference between listening and not listening. The line on her forehead ceased to move and her eyes alone changed color like the sea.

BUDDHIST TEXTS

COMING IN 1978

Dharma flower Sutra, Volume III, Chapter 2, Expedients.

Avatamsaka Sutra: Preface by T'ang Dynasty National Master Ch'ing Liang.
                                    The Ten Grounds , Chapter twenty-six.
                                    The Ten Dwellings, Chapter fifteen.

Listen to Yourself: Think Everything Over, Kuan Yin and Ch'an Dharma Talks.

Shurangama Sutra, Volume II.

SINO-AMERICAN BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION

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