Poems

The Path

by Shinzen Young

If anybody asks you what the Path is about,
It's about generosity.
It's about morality.
It's about concentration.
It's about gaining insight through
focused self-observation.
It's about the cultivation of subjective states
of compassion and love based on insight.
And it's about translating that compassion
and love into actions in the real world.

Holy Longing

by Goethe, as translated by Shinzen Young

Tell it to no one but the wise
For most will mock it right away
The truly living do I prize
Those who long in flame to die.

In the coolness of love's evenings
Where you beget and were begotten,
You're overcome by strange new feeling
As the silent candle brightens.

No longer are you trapped and mired
In the darkened shadowings
But swept away by new desire
To a higher lovemaking.

Distance does not pall your flight
Spellbound through the air you're borne
Til at last mad for the light
You are a butterfly, then... gone.

And until you know of this:
How to grow through death
You're just another grumpy guest,
On the gloomy earth.

The Best Season of Your Life

by Wu-men, as translated by Shinzen Young

Spring brings the flowers.
Autumn, the moon.
Summer's refreshing breeze.
Winter's delightful freeze.
Once you have unburdened mind,
you find that every season's kind.

The Buddha in Glory

by Rainer Maria Rilke, as translated by Shinzen Young in July, 1998

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond that enclosed itself to sweeten –
all of this, to the furthest stars
is your fruit-flesh: hear my greeting.

See, you feel nothing more upon you clinging;
your shell is open wide without a bound,
your ripe sap, infinite and streaming.
was aided by a light from far beyond,

Then, all above you,
full and fiery orbited your suns.
But that which will outlive the stars,
by you has now been won.