The Shooters

The people
who get pushed
unbearably hard
by life,
can sometimes go
on a shooting rampage,
and they
are not monsters,
but people
whose suffering
has turned into
an intense hatred
of life,
and they are victims
killing victims,
of a life
which is as brutal
sometimes,
as God.

Hip Zen

When I discovered
John Cage and Jack Kerouac,
as a kid,
I was so impressed
that I wanted to follow
in their footsteps
and become an artist
like they were,
so since
they were such hip guys
who were into Zen,
I thought Zen must be
the hip religion
that I must study
in order to be
a hip artist,
and I was going to say
that it didn't work out
that way at all,
but then I thought
that actually
I am some kind
of hip artist
like they were,
just on a very small scale.

Sayings

Here is a list
of sayings,
designed to help you
to keep from drowning
in this world,
and none of them
are true,
they are just things
that we say,
1. It's all good
2. It's neither good nor bad
3. It's a good/bad thing
4. Life is suffering
5. Everything good is bad and everything bad is good
6. Life sucks and then you die
so these sayings
are little bits 
of philosophy,
to help you realize
that you can't really
say anything.

The Kind Of Painting That I Like

I like 
paintings
that look like
a monkey could do them,
and I tend to not like
paintings that look like
they were done
by a skilled, professional
artist,
who has studied
the art of painting
for a long time,
and has great skill
in presenting
works that look like
something real,
no, I like like an artist
who just slops some paint
on a canvas
and calls it art,
and I know
that I am in
the minority on this,
but that's OK
with me.

Zen Is Like This

Zen is like
a plant,
and the flower
is motion,
fullness, sound,
thinking,
and life as we see it,
but the root of the plant
is stillness,
emptiness, silence,
not-thinking,
and the nothingness
of existence
as some of us
perceive it,
so I delight
in the flower,
and only perceive
the root
occasionally,
because it is buried
and hidden
from our ordinary mind.

About Inspirational Thoughts

I tend
to sit in a chair,
thinking,
and I like
to receive
inspirational thoughts,
which are thoughts
that will get me out
of the chair,
to go about
doing something
that I like,
and I get them
from the mind
and I have to decide
if the thoughts
are what I
Really Want To Do,
so these thoughts
are soaking in desire,
and Buddha said
that desire
causes suffering,
but inspiration
is just what
the doctor ordered
for me,
so these thoughts
are negatives
if you get too many,
or if you don't get enough,
but are a great joy
if you get
just the right ones,
so in the West
most people
think they come
from God,
but Buddhists tend to believe
that they come from
the original mind,
the empty source,
but I don't know,
I'm just
a no-nothing.

Is A Dog Buddha?

There is talk going around
that animals
are more like Buddhas
than humans,
which I think
is a dangerous teaching,
and it comes
from this insistence
on being
in the second stage
of Zen,
which is the not thinking stage,
or no mind,
so some people think
that animals
have perfect no minds,
and are therefore
more advanced
than humans,
spiritually,
but I think
that animals
have only
the ancient, reptilian mind,
and mammals have
the feeling mind,
but they don't have
the higher consciousness
that mankind has,
so animals
have no idea
about morality
or meditation
and therefore
aren't Buddhas,
they are brainless idiots,
like some of us
are seeming
to becoming
if we believe
that dogs are Buddhas.

Where Crawdads Grow

This is Earth,
the place
where crawdads grow
and bedbugs roam
searching for blood,
the place where
an ordinary person
who thinks he is
the Christ,
the Antichrist,
and Maitreya Buddha
all rolled into one,
is eating a egg monster
off of a plate,
so this is Earth, folks,
the place
where I am sometimes told
is pure and perfect.
Hallelujah!

Why Did We Put Hell In Hello

So, as we are walking
somewhere,
we encounter
our fellow people,
but since we were taught
not to talk to strangers,
and since they teach us
on television
that we never know
who these people are,
that they might be
a shooter or a rapist
or a mugger or something,
so we decided
like football players
that the best defense
is a good offense,
so every person
that we meet
we say a cheerful "Hi" to,
but actually
we're scared
and they are scared
and it's like we pulled out
a gun or something,
so they say "Hi" back,
and we keep on walking,
so that was how I was,
until I learned to shut up,
and now I see
that there's sometimes
hell in hello.

Why Did We Take The Good Out Of Goodbye

We don't say
goodbye
anymore,
and it meant
God be with you,
or Good be with you,
now we say bye,
and some people think
you mean bi,
or we say
see you later,
like we haven't seen them
already,
or we say
have a nice day,
without knowing
that we are wishing someone
a nice day,
and if we do say
Goodbye,
it seems so final
that some people
might think
that they are going
to die,
or something.

The Spirit Of The Slowly Moving Cloud

I name myself,
sometimes,
so after listening
to the computer radio,
I was sitting still,
watching
the gentle spirit
within,
who was moving through
the body/mind.

I decided on a beer,
because I think
that Dharma sometimes
becomes so heavy
that we should drop it.

We should obey stop signs,
so that we don't get busted,
but, otherwise
I wouldn't suggest obeying anything.

I'm sitting here
watching the slowly moving cloud
inside,
wondering what to do next.

The problem of what to do next
seems to be everybody's problem,
and it was my first problem,
and sometimes I still have trouble
with it.

Talking To The Dead

I used to think
that I could communicate
with people
who had just died,
but I found
that it's safer
to my mental health
to think
that it was just
a projection
of my own thoughts.

Patterns In Randomness

If we find
too many patterns
in randomness,
we are crazy,
and if we find
not enough patterns
in randomness,
we are crazy.

Crazy

My sister
has turned
my house
into a fantasy land
of crazy wisdom.

Try To Work It Out

We can
forgive,
but we can't
forget,
so try
to kiss
and make up
with the bad times.

Simplify

In this world,
the beauty
is in the simple,
and the ugliness
is in the grey blob.

Ping Pong

So a man
said to me
that Zen
was like ping pong,
but I didn't understand,
because
when my sister and I
played ping pong
as kids,
I loved it,
but only
when I was winning,
and since
my younger sister
got so much practice
playing ping pong
with  me,
she got much better
than me,
and began
to whip my ass,
so then
I quit,
and I don't think
that Zen
is like that,
but that kind of thing,
this winning and losing,
is what bothers me,
about sports
and art
and everything,
and Zen says that
the loser wins,
but losing
makes me unhappy,
so I don't really think
that being a pathetic loser
like I sometimes think
that I am,
is so good,
so that's why
I gave up ping pong,
but I won't give up
art.

The Terror War

In the terror war,
the United States
is trying to develop,
or maybe even already has
a computer
that can read the minds
of terrorists,
or even anybody,
because they want to know
what the terrorists are thinking
before they do it,
unfortunately
there is a glaring ignorance
involved in this,
and that is
that the experts
don't know
that the moment
the computer
reads the terrorist's thoughts,
which are something like
"I have to go to the bathroom,
before I set the bomb off",
the terrorist's mind
being the eternal infinite thing
that the mind is,
will understand everything
about what is happening,
about the computer,
about the plans of the United States government,
about the people involved,
about everything there is to know
about the terror war,
whereas
the computer will only know
"I have to go to the bathroom,
before I set the bomb off",
and this is because
the machine is nuts and bolts
without any wisdom or compassion
or morality,
but the mind
is vast and beyond comprehension.

Seeing The Way

This morning,
I got a clear vision
of the way
and the anti-way,
and realized
that the way
is disliked by many,
and that the anti-way
is practiced by maybe most,
so I am in
a religion
which teaches the way,
but I am waist deep
in the quicksand
of the anti-way,
mainly because
as a young man,
I confused the anti-way
for the way,
and the way
is simple,
because it is the way
of wholesome virtue,
and that way
makes many of us gag,
even though
it is the true way
of peace, happiness, good health,
and love,
but I seem to know
that most of the world
is deeply buried
over its head
in this quicksand
of the darkness
of the anti-way,
but cheer up,
there's still hope.