Poems that I love

by Rebecca del Rio You are hanging from a branch by your teeth. No way to save yourself or others who hang, too. Arms that cannot reach any branch, legs stretch but cannot find the smooth safe trunk. All around, your loved ones, friends, strangers hang-- teeth clamp bony twigs that suspend necessary hopes and plans. It is hopeless. No rescue will arrive. So you relax, taste the clean, unfamiliar tang of sap, feel the forgiving wind against your waving arms, arms that swim through emptiness. Without hope, life is focused, fluid, a ledge of fragile earth suspended over the ocean of unknowing, the end of the branch. Life is the glorious moment before the fall when all plans are abandoned, the love you give as you hang, loving those who hang with you. * I think that the reader might be interested to know about Case 5 of the Mumonkan .

by Rebecca del Rio Gratitude means showing up on life’s doorstep, love’s threshold, dressed in a clown suit, rubber-nosed, gunboat shoes flapping. Gratitude shows up with arms full of wildflowers, reciting McKuen or the worst of Neruda. To talk of gratitude is to be the fool in a cynic’s world. Gratitude is pride’s nightmare, the admission of humility before something given without expectation or attachment. Gratitude tears open the shirt of self importance, scatters buttons across the polished floors of feigned indifference, ignores the obvious and laughs out loud. Even more, gratitude bears her breasts, rips open her ribs to show the naked heart, the holy heart. What if that sacred heart is not, after all, about sacrifice? Imagine it is about joy, barefoot and foolhardy, something unasked for, something unearned. What if the beat we hear, when we are finally quiet is simply this: Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you, Rebecca!

by Rebecca del Rio You are hanging from a branch by your teeth. No way to save yourself or others who hang, too. Arms that cannot reach any branch, legs stretch but cannot find the smooth safe trunk. All around, your loved ones, friends, strangers hang-- teeth clamp bony twigs that suspend necessary hopes and plans. It is hopeless. No rescue will arrive. So you relax, taste the clean, unfamiliar tang of sap, feel the forgiving wind against your waving arms, arms that swim through emptiness. Without hope, life is focused, fluid, a ledge of fragile earth suspended over the ocean of unknowing, the end of the branch. Life is the glorious moment before the fall when all plans are abandoned, the love you give as you hang, loving those who hang with you.

Zen comments on the 12 Steps The koan, "Hsiang-yen: Up a Tree," case 5 of the Mumonkan. Today I find myself totally swept up in the hanging man's dilemma as I begin to re-work Step 1 of the 12 Steps. The Big Book puts the first step in simple, straightforward language: "I admit that I am powerless over … [alcohol, drugs, food, sex]—that my life has become unmanageable." It's just the first step on a journey, and in my case, there is a story connected with my personal surrender. Here is case 5 as my teacher, John Tarrant Roshi, presented it during a retreat . "Hsiang-yen: Up Tree" The priest Hsiang-yen said, "It is as though you were up in a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth. Your hands and feet can't touch any branch. Someone appears beneath the tree and asks, `What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?' If you do not answer, you evade your responsibility. If you do answer, you lose your life.