More offerings from
Rusty's Zen Moments.
Wren Zen (pg. 44)
The gentle morning sunlight,
(For it gets pretty hot around here in the afternoons,
And is anything but gentle)
The gentle morning sunlight
Fell upon a female wren
As she perched upon a statue of Buddha
That resides in my garden.
How beautiful she is!
In her feathery mantle of rich camouflage.
From atop Buddha’s head she eyed the situation.
She has a sharp eye
To match her beak.
Spotting something of interest,
She flew away.
She had only paused a moment,
But there remained behind a wonderful residue of good zen.
I ask the same of you.
Not that you fly away.
Any fool knows that humans cannot fly unaided.
No, I ask that you pause for a moment,
And have a good look around
With a sharp eye
To see what’s what.
Because with zen,
One seeks enlightenment,
An understanding about things
That will make life bearable.
And you’ll never find enlightenment
Or anything else,
With your eyes closed.
During the years they have lived in my garden,
This wren and her husband have reared many children together.
They work as a team and share the duties.
Building a home, finding sustenance, raising children.
Here in Florida with our light winters
They hatch a brood of up to three chicks,
Two or three times a year.
That’s a lot of wrens!
More than the red-tailed hawks,
Who also like our Florida climate,
Can usually consume.
For they must feed their young ones too, yes?
Procreation!
Life and death!
Nature’s balance!
Zen at work.
With the passing of the years
I have watched this miracle
Many times.
Always with amazement.
It’s a Good Thing I’ve Got My Zen Along (pg.41)
What is the aim of life?
That’s a big question.
I don’t know exactly.
So it’s a good thing
I’ve got my zen along
To help me figure it out.
My Zen Loves a Laugh, Part 2 (pg. 60)
My zen’s got a great sense of humor.
It loves a laugh!
I’m glad of that,
Because who enjoys
Being around a sourpuss?
Yes, my zen loves a laugh.
Especially at my expense.
But I don’t mind.
I can afford it,
Because it doesn’t cost a thing.
My zen is laughing at me all the time.
Laughing at me to remind me
How senseless it is
In this crazy world
To take things too seriously!
Ha! Ha!
Have you ever noticed how contagious laughter is?
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Oh boy! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Uh oh.
I think I just peed myself.
Words (pg.59)
The following is a list of words
My zen and I wish we could do without.
- No
Zen and the ISS (pg. 57)
My zen and I got up early this morning
To see the International Space Station fly past.
It being in low Earth orbit,
(That’s 249 miles above the equator,
Which doesn’t sound like low anything to me)
You can see it with the naked eye
While standing in the street
In front of my home in Florida.
As I understand it,
Sunlight strikes its giant array of solar panels,
(Which is bigger than a football field),
And the reflected light from these panels,
Light composed of both particles and waves,
Is shot out into space
And caught by our upturned eyes
As we stand upon the earth.
Then by a further miraculous procedure,
Which I haven’t the time to explain,
From our eyes to our brain.
Thus, we witness the ISS.
Aha!
But only If you know when,
And where,
To look.
That’s the zen of it!
Knowing how to look for the miracles
That are happening around us
All the time!
You ask me how
I happen to know when and where to look
For this particular miracle that is passing overhead?
You wanna know what makes me so clever?
Easy.
I have a smartphone app.
At the touch of a screen on my handheld device
I am shown where the ISS is at any time.
This app also predicts within the minute
When the ISS will pass over my current location.
(My current location supplied by another miracle, satellite GPS.)
It even has an alarm, this app,
So that I might remember
To go outside and look into the sky
(At the right time and place)
To witness this scientific miracle.
So my zen and I got up early this morning
To see the International Space Station fly past.
After consulting my smartphone app,
I stood in the street in front of my house
And looked up.
And, while waiting for the ISS to appear,
I experienced a zen moment.
Into my mind
Sprang this thought…
Uncounted eons of karma,
Trillions of years of human DNA,
The entire flow of the endless universe,
Everyone and everything that had ever gone before
Had lead to this exact moment!
(As it does,
Let us not forget,
To every moment!)
I was aware and in the moment.
Big stuff!
Pure zen.
Oneness with all.
Enlightenment.
Buzz went the alarm on my smartphone.
So I emptied my mind of these marvelous thoughts,
And looked up into the heavens
Where the app told me to.
The ISS appeared out of the Earth’s shadow at 5:37AM
And passed directly over my house.
Or seemed to.
It only took a couple of minutes
To cross the central Florida firmament from horizon to horizon.
It looked exactly like a bright, steadily moving star.
A beautiful star traversing the long sky with abiding purpose
And, miracle of miracles,
Carrying human beings!
It’s been circling the earth since 1998.
Traveling at a maximum speed of about 17,000 MPH.
Completing approximately 15 1/2 orbits per day.
That’s 16 sunrises and sunsets every day!
How marvelous to think that humans
Have continually inhabited the ISS
For almost 17 years.
What magnificent intelligence this feat represents!
Almost unimaginable zen!
What more evidence do we require
That human beings are descended from the gods?
The gods who fell to Earth
From the skies above.
So why worry?
We’re as perfect
As the gods
Could make us.
Don’t let being human
Hold you back!
Accept yourself completely
For the miracle that you are!
And then become…
Unattached to that.
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