poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha!: What Fake Buddha Quotes Can Teach Us About Buddhism by Bodhipaksa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fun and fast read that is a real boon to anyone hoping to (a) figure out when things attributed to the Buddha are wrong, and (b) learn more about what the Buddha actually said (knowing, of course, that the first couple hundred years relied on oral transmission). Recommended.
Leave a Commentregrets
while breathing in & breathing out
I picture myself on my deathbed
tearful family surrounding me
*
it’s just a few years from now
which is so disappointing
I waited & waited until I was free
but I was never free
*
I treated my life like a prison sentence
waiting for a red parole stamp
to mark the beginning of the happy phase
*
I thought my argument to the board
was convincing but I never quite got over
always ending the day with a slow march
back to my cell
*
what does it mean to be unhappy
from the moment you’re born till the very end?
*
back in the present I return to the breath
again and again back to the breath
I feel it deep in my gut
but the anchor slips and I’m adrift again
*
in four-and-one-half years I’ll be 50
///
Jason Crane
29 April 2019
State Motherfucking College PA
the world’s breath
I’m in some
bastardized
Burmese posture
as the wind
tries its many hands
against the walls.
Are we ever so
comfortable
as when
whatever shelter
we’ve conjured
proves able
to withstand
nature’s
not-so-gentle
reminders?
///
Jason Crane
29 December 2018
Cheshire, NY
300
300 times on the cushion
or the couch or the bed
or the seiza bench.
300 trips into the carwash
of my brain, brushes
spinning, thoughts
spraying this way and that.
300 dances with the monkey,
banging on the typewriter keys
with no paper in the machine.
Light the incense, light the candle,
sit, breathe, rinse, repeat.
Three bells to start, three bells
to finish. I guess that’s
eighteen hundred bells.
Seems like a lot.
///
Jason Crane
3 December 2018
State College PA
I’ve been very reluctant to talk about this, but I think that sometime in the past year I’ve had one or more enlightenment experiences as a result of meditation and some life shocks. I hesitate to even use that terminology because it’s so weighted.
In any case, there have been several tangible results of seeing the world more clearly this way, one of which is that I’m exploring ideas I would have rejected before, including those rooted in nature. These experiences are also the cause of my recent job decision and the attempt to redesign my life around a different set of principles.
My life has always been moving in this direction, but very slowly until this past year, when suddenly I see the universe and my relationship to it (and the reality of whether or not there’s a “me”) in a way I never imagined before. I’m still figuring all this out, and definitely not laying claim to any special knowledge or status. It’s another step on the path.
Leave a Commentgrasshopper softly
sits on the mallet waiting
for me to begin
8.5.18
O-An Zendo
///
outside the window
a leaf that looks like a face
“hi, leaf, my name is—”
8.5.18
O-An Zendo
things the Buddha said
the Buddha said to thine own self be true
the Buddha said take two of these and call me in the morning
the Buddha said a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
the Buddha said better dead than red
the Buddha said don’t fire till you see the whites (of their eyes)
the Buddha said we have nothing to fear but fear itself
the Buddha said we didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock
landed on us
the Buddha said outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend
the Buddha paused then said inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read
the Buddha said mourn for the dead and fight like hell for the living
the Buddha said the only way to stop a bad man with a gun is
a good man with a gun
the Buddha said no puppet, no puppet, you’re the puppet
the Buddha said one of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces
the Buddha said come with me if you want to live
the Buddha said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice
the Buddha said these prices are insane
the Buddha said get away from me kid, you’re bothering me
the Buddha said this could be the start of a beautiful friendship
the Buddha said where’s the beef
the Buddha said taste the rainbow
the Buddha said a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
the Buddha said only you can prevent forest fires
the Buddha said one and one-half wandering Jews
the Buddha said ancient Chinese secret
the Buddha said I never met a man I didn’t like
the Buddha said don’t look back, something might be gaining on you
the Buddha said I stop somewhere waiting for you
the Buddha said put a tiger in your tank
the Buddha said god does not play dice with the universe
the Buddha said Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall
the Buddha said ich bin ein Berliner
the Buddha said freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose
the Buddha said the brown acid that is circulating around us
is not specifically too good
the Buddha said when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
the Buddha said I am everyday people
the Buddha said but wait there’s more
/ / /
Jason Crane
20 March 2018
Butler, PA
one drop of water
falls into the hotel sink
I am far from home
3.6.18
Butler PA
///
raspy laughter comes
through the wall from the next room
in (one) out (two) in…
3.6.18
Butler PA
cold wind like a slap
boys, biking, do not feel it
I wait in the car
3.3.18
Phillipsburg PA
///
car zooms by outside
rain spatter on rubber tires
while upstairs: zazen
3.3.18
State College PA
Had a big epiphany this morning. The religious zeal and calling I feel is directed toward the creation of an intentional community. I also feel a very strong love and gratitude for Buddhism. My Buddhism has been a solitary practice for so long that I’ve tended to dissociate the religious/community calling from Buddhism. With the recent creation of an evening meditation group, and a planned trip to the local Zen center this weekend, I feel a merging of my calling and my Buddhist practice. Maybe I’m finally finding my path.
The other day I wrote a poem called “the bodhisattva of Prospect Ave (all praise to Jah)” after a walk I took around town. Today I took another walk and discovered two things: (1) the statue is on Hamilton Ave, not Prospect; and (2) someone smashed it in the four days since I wrote the poem.
I discovered it had been smashed because I stopped by to pay my respects on my walk. I was very sad and very angry to see it lying there. I know it’s not mine, and it’s an ephemeral object, like all objects, but it still just felt … wrong. I also felt a little relief that I had placed it on the wrong street in my poem, meaning it’s unlikely someone read the poem and decided, “Hey, I dislike Jason, I’m going to go kick over that statue.”
I live in a conservative, wealth-obsessed town full of drunk college kids, and at the moment I saw the statue it was pretty easy to hate this town. That’s not a particularly Buddhist attitude, but it was my honest reaction. It’s been about 20 minutes and I’m back home, sweaty from the walk, but writing before the emotions pass, which they will. I was thinking I might knock on the door of the house with the statue and offer to help them get it fixed, as a way to turn this into something positive.
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I finished Brad Warner’s Don’t Be A Jerk today for the second time, in preparation for reading his follow-up, It Came From Beyond Zen! Don’t Be A Jerk is described as a “radical but reverent paraphrasing of Dogen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.” That pretty much sums it up. Warner goes through chapters from Dogen’s 800-year-old Zen classic and tries to put them into accessible modern language while not diluting their meaning or impact. You can hear me interview him about this book in the video below:
I thoroughly enjoyed Warner’s paraphrasing of Dogen, but on my second reading I found myself most moved by the final chapter, “Dogen’s Zen In The Twenty-First Century,” in which Warner not only brings Dogen into the present, but also movingly depicts his own current view of Zen after several decades of practice. Rather than paraphrase Warner’s writing, I thought I’d just quote him. (I’ve skipped some bits. Missing bits are replaced by an ellipsis. Also note that “zazen” is seated silent meditation.)
“To me Zen is communal practice of individual deep inquiry. … Throughout human history people have been concerned about the deeper meaning of existence. They wanted to understand who and what they actually were and how they fit into the world. … Among those seekers, there is a certain class of people who try to understand the human condition by sitting very quietly and simply observing themselves in action (even sitting still for long periods is a kind of action; try it sometime if you have any doubts). … Buddhism started not when Shakyamuni had his great revelation by himself. Lots of people had done that before. It began when he made his first efforts to transform that into a communal practice. Although you can – and I think you should – do zazen by yourself, that larger thing we call Zen Buddhism is not something you do by yourself. You can do zazen by yourself. You do Zen Buddhism with other people.”
I think that’s one of the most beautiful summations of Zen Buddhism I’ve read. As someone whose practice has primarily been solitary, it also served as the kick in the pants I needed to find some other folks to sit with. Read the book. You won’t be disappointed.
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the bodhisattva of Hamilton Ave (all praise to Jah)*
briskly walking (trying to get back
in some sort of shape) I spotted
the bodhisattva beneath a bush
the moss covering him like a robe
the leaves surrounding him
like an offering
at this point in the poem, I very much
want to tell you that I’m listening
to a killer Desmond Dekker track
“Rudie Got Soul” doesn’t have much
to do with a lone bodhisattva
forgotten under a bush
then again, maybe they have
everything
to do with one another
/ / /
Jason Crane
16 February 2018
State College PA
*As you can see from the title of this post, rather than the title of the poem, I had mistakenly placed this statue on Prospect Ave, rather on its true home, Hamilton Ave. Also, in the days since I wrote the poem, someone smashed the statue.
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particle & wave
peel back the flesh over the sternum, then slowly separate the ribs
there in the center is the light, both particle & wave
the light will spill into the room, but that’s to be expected
reach your hands into the chest cavity
it’s often best to do this part with your eyes closed
the fingertips are more sensitive than sight
as you press your fingers inward, you should feel
the hard edge of a jewel, concealed there in the light
were your eyes open you’d be unable to see it
your fingers, though, find it easily, willingly, hungrily
withdraw this jewel from the cavity & open your eyes
in the facets of the jewel there are universes reflected
some are worlds like this one, but with subtle changes
others are strange lands unlike any conceived of by the human mind
behind these worlds, at the very center of the jewel
is the home of the light; it sits in a perfectly spherical room
never flickering, never dimming, both particle & wave
knowing this is inside of you, what is beyond your grasp?
/ / /
Jason Crane
6 February 2018
Pittsburgh PA
the bodhisattva of Naples, New York
for Mary Cornish
They came with stories.
They came to a big barn
near a small town
on a spring day
still gripped
by the memory of winter.
They stood beneath
a thousand tiny lights,
huddled around a wood stove.
They laughed and cried
as they talked about her.
In the end what are we
but stories in other mouths,
laughter in country barns,
tears on the cheeks
of those who love us?
/ / /
Jason Crane
24 April 2017
State College, PA
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened being who forgoes nirvana and instead stays in this world to help others.
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