Autumn Heart

Last night it rained–
Dawn’s air is full of dew.
Stepping on a path
Covered in rock,
The crumpling sounds of shoes are silent.
Every rock is saturated with water,
Gently cradling every footfall.

Little forest is quiet,
Without a wisp of wind,
Maple, with its red leaves quietly unfurling within a sea of green.
Sometimes yellow–at other times–red and yellow colliding,
Lustrous, in the tranquil silence.
Unceasing beauty–
How may we guard you?

Walnut trees beside the path–
When did the three lose all their leaves?
Yet still, there is one standing tall.
Leaves–half green and yellow–with not a hint of withering.
The same seeds,
Yet drastically their leaf-falls differ.
And–so it is with humans,
Long and short, lives differ.
Some strained beyond their means,
While some pass seventy with vigour, vitality and piercing bright eyes.

The lake before the window is the most mysterious,
As autumn carries over its experiences, both shallow and deep.
The green floating fabrics of summer have all faded away.
The surface
–clear–

Trees by the lake are cast onto its water-mirror.
Trees on the Earth and trees on the water,
Together, enhancing.
Colours laying in the water,
Gently rippling trees…
Occasionally, a call–
A long goose honk,
Does nothing but emphasize calm.

Autumn days,
Calm and beautiful,
A thousand things playing in harmonious symphony.
Green grass, strewn with lush rich leaves…

Maple leaves may be accompanied by a letter,
Decorated, to become exquisite gifts,
Mailed to comfort those pining.
But today, they lay calmly covering the earth.
Spreading autumn’s glory.
All of this–each and every piece–embodies
Tranquility in equanimity,
Gratification in simplicity.

Fall waters, great skies
Maple trees, wild geese
Those that are wandering
May yearn for their roots,
Craving home.
Yet, the practitioner can,
Within nature’s meditative garden perceive:
Great and subtle impermanence,
The law of karma,
All things as interdependent,
And the beauty of all things without even an inkling of ever-unchanging essence–
The heart’s deepest wisdom laid bare.
Autumn sky, it if could ponder,
Would wonder:
Is there a discerning heart,
Experiencing all things without beginning and end?
Yet karma continues to flow…

The Surangama Sutra states in the Meditation on the Organ of Hearing:

At first by directing the organ of hearing into the stream of meditation, this organ was detached from its object, and by wiping out (the concept of) both sound and stream-entry, both disturbance and stillness became clearly non-existent. Thus advancing step by step both hearing and its object ceased completely, but I did not stop where they ended. When the awareness of this state and this state itself were realized as non-existent, both subject and object merged into the void, the awareness of which became all-embracing. With further elimination of the void and its object both creation and annihilation vanished giving way to the state of Nirvana which then manifested.

Suddenly I leaped over both the mundane and supramundane, thereby realizing an all-embracing brightness pervading the ten directions, and acquired two unsurpassed (merits). The first was in accord with the fundamental Profound Enlightened Mind of all the Buddhas high up in the ten directions and possessed the same merciful power as the Tathagata. The second was in sympathy with all living beings in the six realms of existence here below in the ten directions and shared with them the same plea for compassion.

Reciting these lines,
Within them the heart quietly
Immerses.
Repeated repetition,
Continuous contemplation,
In autumn’s light
We aspire for
The Buddhas’ wisdom.