Bodhi Leaf Haibun

What is Haibun?

Haibun is a vivid personal experience or sequence of events written in a prosimetric vernacular; an episodic autobiography, travelogue, or essay combining prose and pop-style poetry in literary fusion. Writing haibun is a contemplative practice that requires training the mind as much as working with a traditional, literary form.

Inspired by Basho's travelogue, and Issa's mystic irreverence, I wondered if I too could write such timeless and picturesque poems. So I joyfully jotted a few sentences, some short lines from time to time as unique and poignant occasions arose.

Turns out haibun isn't hard at all, it's easy and fun to write! I know my experience is unique, precious and beautiful—even transpersonal—so I write in playful form that others might see as well.

Collected Bodhi Leaf Haibun

~~~

Grandmaster drives a bright red '88 Toyota 4x4 pickup truck lifted and decked out in chrome bars with an AZ license plate, TAICHE. That's just how he teaches, too, spelling it out slightly cryptic in an illustration of the ultimate perfection of things just as they are.

His Shaolin training ground is in a neighborhood of citrus groves with legacy water rights, where Salt River Project soaks green lawns deep to the roots of grapefruit and mulberry trees. The Temple of the Twin Dragons in the back. A rammed-earth portal where an eclectic group of kick-ass types lounge before and after trainings. Smoke wafts from an occasional winter fire in the chimenea, Grandmaster's Swisher Sweets waft from the open window in the east.

Underneath the shade of those grapefruit trees is a fat, laughing Buddha made of clay. One of those statues imported from China. This particular one's mudra has hands holding up the sky, with palms up above his head, and fingers pointing toward each other. Quite the eccentric trainee, an elderly lady smacking of ylang ylang, tries Buddha's posture for herself and without restraint sounds off somatic in a bout of hysteria for the rest of the hour!

Meanwhile the disciples who could mind their own practiced each of their respective forms. Grandmaster weaves his way through teaching with a gesture, or a few choice words to disrupt the conceptual mind. Swisher Sweets incense cigarette stick wafts with his hand.

"Seeker, it's simple," he says while the medium trainee by the grapefruit trees holds up her hilarious idea of sky. Channeling all manner of star-beings' gnostic love and light.

"It's experiential!"

~~~

Coyote comes from Taos
a Stihl chainsaw
a tale of Tibetans

Stihl matters to the chainsaw artist, carving the kerf away from the log's inner black bear. This traveler takes Bigfoot’s Stihl, along with extra gas and bar oil, at merely hearing the word, "mitigation." This aspiring hotshot hacks through the mesquite and juniper thickets with Cote. His name rhymes, people actually call him “Coyote.”

Coyote is privy to this and that: the Tibetans have been inside Taos Mountain for a long time. They’re waking up now.

This traveler recalls the prophecy: when the iron eagle flies, and horses run on wheels, Tibetans will be scattered like ants across the globe, bringing Dharma to the land of Red-faced People.

~~~

The quintessential Coyote type of Dharma Bum saunters around Naropa University, and the encompassing Boulder Buddhist hipster scene: all the happenings and meditations, teachings, and empowerments in town.

He seems to wear one too many shawls and always carries a POSSIBLE BAG of whatever blessed talisman he could ever get his hands on next: scrap papers of a lama's hand, tiny icons and pendants, huge scepters and the tiniest pins and trinkets, broken sticks of incense and protection cords all wrapped up and presented with a white, silken scarf.

anutpattikadharmakshanti

He bums an americano at The Laughing Goat, never takes so much of a sip just keeps talking, marveling at his own shaggy dog's tale of the innumerable auspicious conditions that got us here, to this very cafe, blissed out in the dawn after having just recited The Vimalakirti Sūtra—all night long.

as many grains of sand in Ganga
joyful ambiguities
methods of awakening

Finally getting to the point of our uncommon Yellow-Hat connection, ZaChoeje Rinpoche (my own Refuge Lama) telling how once when he was at The Boulder Bookstore promoting his book, The Backdoor to Enlightenment, that very Rinpoche let a scrap piece of paper fly on the western Chinooks blowing strong down the pedestrian mall the previous fall.

Coyote caught that scrap mid-air, and reveals from his POSSIBLE BAG!

That's how we're surely both natural-born Gelukpas.

~~~

One ethnic Chinese man at retreat always makes his cushion in the very front row, facing direct the lion throne, hands pressed firm in anjali, full lotus feet, supplicating Holiness's endless bliss and emptiness.

Om Mani Peme Hung

That's his real name. Because the nature and extent of each and every conversation amounts to it. Not just between him and I, but everyone and he. So that's what people call him, Om Mani Peme Hung his name.

When I'm in the bathhouse after breakfast to take a leak and hear him chanting mantra in the shower, shaving his head again even balder than it already was, I echo, "Om Mani Peme Hung" to which he recalls the special seed syllable, "HRI," and me, "Hung Hung Hung," and he, "HRI HRI HRI" so by the time I zip up and walk out the door existence and all that seems is proven empty buddhafield supreme.

He does his rota cleaning duty, sprinkling the dining tables after lunch with a steamy green teabag from his mug. Reciting his sacred namesake, dripping tea, extolling the good qualities of purification (until the admins catch wind and inform he must submit to the kitchen bleachbucket grim).

After lunch, another shower and shave Om Mani Peme Hung's in the front row again, astute in anjali, day after day in his pure white skirt and yogi Buddhist shawl.

And when the month is complete, and all the disciples are overwhelmed with impermanence, Om Mani Peme Hung goes his own way too, a summer cloud adrift, back to The City to drive his yellow cab.

Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx
yellow cab ferrying
Endless streams of sentient beings

Next summer: it was at the end of the first weekend's empowerment ceremony, when everyone stands and forms a sprawling line to the throne (demonstrating how it would be easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than for all in attendance to receive their empowerment substances at once) that I look ahead and notice a void in the front row, Om Mani Peme Hung has yet to be seen!

And just then while standing at the end of the line, while the Chantmaster had just taken his and begun the long chant, Om Mani Peme Hung appears in a solid red sweatsuit and smiles with his hands in prayer. He sits right down next to me standingat the end of the massing and seemingly motionless line.

Word of his arrival spreads up the line. Each devotee looks in their turn to see the man for themselves. One kind beloved father bends downward, whispers to his daughter's ear, "Look, it's Om Mani Peme Hung. Soon he'll be sitting in the very front row again."

And there he sat the very next day.

"Soon he'll be sitting on the throne," I say.

~~~

Enter the outer Teahouse garden to Ocean of Dharma, Trungpa's sacred namesake. Sits bones on a hard wood bench, five pairs of feet in perfect order on flagstone, hands resting on thighs with each right clutching a closed fan (not for fanning) not too tight, not too loose. Straight upright, a slight smile; conservative conversation on an outbreath or two. Lilacs blooming mark the beginning of summer in the tradition of Chado, Japanese Tea Ceremony.

smashed purpleblack
mulberries on the walk
madly chirping squirrels

"Excuse me for going before you."

Enter the inner Teahouse garden. Stone Water Basin. All five elements purify at once dripping lightly down the long bamboo ladle. Little steps on stone islands in a pea gravel sea. On reaching the front shore/door shoes set pointing out (a humble guest's gesture of not intending to stay too long).

Crouch at the limen
Slight bow and eyes adjust—
The calligraphy still drips wet

Enter the Teahouse proper. Complimentary sweet. Bitter nourishes heart. A simple bowl of tea. A cosmos in four-and-a-half  tatami mats perfumed with diffused sandalwood chips and sprinkled with water clean. Cross beyond. Scoot back. Even the tea scoop has a name: "Squirrel Mind" rooftop tile tumbles down through thin air to the pea gravel ground/sea. Balls-balls—a playful motif—scurries along the fencetop. Spiders in the rafters are let to live in Zen.

Exit: a wandering cloud past the Japanese maple serene by the Bike Shack (look through the door; dude inside is trues the wheel). A crow cuts across the vage stage of sky.

koko no renga—KA!

~~~

What is this dream of yours?

To burrow underground, dwell in secrecy, sousveilling ten directions furthering this lineage of poetry, this white light of remembrance as archive for fortunate beings of the final five hundred years, who will in fact come to know that not everyone was merely killing and stealing from each other, that some sought beauty in pure love and creation.

gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate bodhi svaha

Without any pomp or circumstance I offer to Anne Waldman finished mingling after her bookstore poetry reading the traditional Tibetan white silken scarf with its complimentary white envelope stuffed with cash. She marries the scarf with the fabulous one she always wears already, opens the envelope to find a love note and wad of cash. The former she places at her crown, the latter returns to me.

"Onward!"

~~~

Poolesville, Maryland. The very embodiment of "ḍākinī principle" in three late-teen ladies as they stand together supplicating their Highness for a teaching on the continuity of blessings post-retreat—white silken scarves held high in offering hands, bright silk brocade are their dresses, each with flowing hair, bright-eyed they plead!

"Remember the suffering of sentient beings.

"Stay moist in the sphere of the ḍākinī's warm breath.

"This way you will never become dry, your bodhicitta will always be dripping wet."

Years later I pass through Sedona, Arizona, and make pilgrimage to Amitabha Stūpa. And there those three ḍākinīs were! Singing Goddess Liberatrix's 21 Praising Homages, miraculously wet under the blazing high desert sun.

~~~

Funny looking white plainclothes bhikku sitting flat on church floor in full lotus with soles of feet upturned, the posture of buddhahood itself, the body of light everlasting spins his prayer wheel to the right, tens of millions of microfilm mantra prayers per revolution spinning strong through Adirondack, Appalachia, New York and Vermont.

There at Mount Abe, Vajrayogini's Cave, a holy site of Freemasons, rendezvous of such Christian federations of yore, dilapidated barns, green woods galore, at small town Bristol streets the bhikku spins our holographic buddha-field alive.

Spinning and grinning with big white teeth smiling wide.

Great Compassion monkey
emanated bliss body
Far-flung northern climes

~~~

The handsome Tibetan interpreter in his 30's hails from "Beervana" AKA Portland, Oregon with its endless streams of vegan friendly libations. He sits on a chair at a table astute with his Macbook listening to the Master of Accomplishments, interpreting with his crisp and technical terminologies pre-figured for our modern ears.

Our anarchist geezer progressive old lady hippie dippie young man middle age mom and yankee anachronist crowd.

We get the gist, not to mention the jism, the grace of Lama, the lineage of Mahāsiddhas who drink and drink and drink so the sun stays still and the tap flows free in tantric continuity.

Adamant Sow laps with her crescent moon tongue, snorts and laughs hysterically!

The afterparty of the collective is one feast after the other when adhering to the view that it's All Good. The interpreter plays guitar and sings spontaneous songs of realization, a jar of dried chickpeas from the kitchen cabinetry makes for a good shaker and dance. Brave heroes and angels in the feminine mass. And as the party turns inward I end up speculating with Gopher OG on a new internet, a distributed and federated social network realized tonight among the fireflies whose bioluminescence outshine.

The interpreter catches us in our fantastic dream and asks, quite point blank:

"Would you trade your vision for an alternative future for Samantabhadrī here and now?"

~~~

One very awkward and geeky first generation American Chinese arrived at the Buddhist Festival in Vermont today. He brought his mother with him from NYC (she has no one else but him on the continent); she stays in the hotel room, or the passenger seat of the car parked in front of the Masonic Lodge and waits.

A hop and shuffle for a gait with a huge Android phone in a case on his hip, Shixi musters whatever little English he can, though only when accused. A prototypical East Coast beat immigrant computer programmer corporate damage controller formally reciting at least 1,000 MAṆI mantras per day for the best of luck in these and all future transmigrations, for all his mothers in peace.

Retreat Master on lunch
discreet behind an image of Christ
Caught catching up on WeChat

So my new friend Shixi (which I still know not how to spell or pronounce) at my accusation accepts a lesson in colloquial English on the well-chiseled steps to the entrance—he reads diligently from The Dharma Bums, tastefully and orientally savoring all the vowels, appreciating consonants, basking in the outrider transmission of pure Kerouacian vision.

The Retreat Master walks by, catches us cultivating pure Dharma and smiles.

Buddha of the adamant expanse
immigrant and priest all one
under the sun
Great Compassion's kindness
streams, summer rays beam
rain falls equally on all the greens
souls and our mothers
sentient beings

~~~

South of Houston millennial couples seem mostly mixed in race with Asian American women particularly hip to handsome white men. We all go hand in hand, scoping each other out on the sidewalks and in shops among such rugged mountain gear selections as woolen scarves and boots at REI.

Will his blue eyes show in a baby boy or girl?
If her almond eyes are alpine and carry the recessive gene.

We pray Liberatrix for the most adorable of miracles, for major and minor marks of manifest Saints of loving kindness in our age of increasing interconnectedness.

Her skin, his hair; her lips, his eyes. The total pacification of reproductive disease and discontent. Blessed fertility!

Dried ginseng and shrooms in Chinatown
White kid on the street corner throws a fit

Green with one face, two hands, two legs, Mother who holds the utpala, come quick!

~~~

"Openings" at The Church of Saint Paul the Apostle in west Midtown features "The Effect of No Government on the Countryside".

Suspending disbelief in the vaulted ceilings of yesteryear, the holy water streams!

Swerving off the busy sidewalk
Architectural immaterial
Passion's release

A man is alone at a pew, disheveled beat working type of a man, head bent down onto a white handkerchief he placed on the polished wooden pew in front. A drop of drool hangs precariously from his lower lip.

Holy place of refuge. Holy place of peace.

Say, just what does The Vatican know about extraterrestrials and space technologies, and just when did they know it?

The Father of Openings invites artists and travelers who wouldn't have been found otherwise in the Church's metaphysic albeit globe-earth orbit.

The Sermon on the Mount
Miracles in Galilee
Manahatta rock

~~~

In the purple morning twilight, in front of the feast offerings of venison, corn cobs and kernels, berries, cool water, Smudge Lady, the petite blonde wife of Roadman, with great poise, puffs on a great cigar of ceremonial tobacco rolled in a moist corn husk making prayers of thanksgiving that we live to the fullest and then from the triangular shaped fire that Fireman's been burning all night, with downy raptor feathers dancing from her tie Smudge Lady presents a few drops of water into the beak of our guest of honor, a supine golden eagle with wings outstretched on a great board to greet the rising sun.

One previous day, the boy shoots another innocent bird with his BB gun and cries.

"Until you actually stop killing innocent creatures, offering a pinch of cornmeal and tobacco is not an authentic amends."