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the Buddha way


the Buddha way


I think of the Buddha way as a life path that can,

with a little effort, bring happiness into my

life and the lives of those with whom I interact.


the essence of the Buddha way is kindness. acts of

kindness must first be practised toward myself

before its positive effects can be focussed outward.


I, like many others, yearn for a world where justice

and peace prevail above all else. I believe that the

practice of kindness in my daily life will stimulate

all those I come into contact with to also be kind.


here is a brief, unattributed poem that touches both my

heart and mind. it is my wish that it also touches yours.


"To cease from evil, to do what is good, to cleanse

one's mind: this is the advice of all the Buddhas."

notes from an ancient wayfarer


notes from an ancient wayfarer


I’ve been here a long, long time. I’ve felt the howling lash of

icy cold winds as they whipped glacial peaks into shapes,

and trodden cruelly hot grains of sand that melted into glass

after each shallow, abyssal step. I’ve swum across deep, wet

wastes so vast that empires rose and fell (as they pridefully

danced in fineries too wondrous to behold) with each wide,

broad stroke of shoulder, arm and kick of legs behind me.


I’ve seen follies. oh yes! I’ve watched species come up and die;

so often, to make essays about greeds versus needs lamentable in

their frequency. and I’ve seen hungry mushroom-cloud maws that

indiscriminately eat everything there is to chew and shit out painful,

everlasting anti-life malignancies. if it’s all about sharing to survive,

then you better look up and smell the carbon-stench of the ovens

that cook the air you and yours and theirs need to breathe to live.


species-jeopardy means that there now exist three immediate threats

to the survival of your species. greed versus need created them all:

radical climate warming does not support life; war does not support

life; and over-population does not support life. the evidence seems

clear to an ancient wayfarer: as a species, you do not wish to survive.


I can say what I’ve seen but they won’t be sweet eulogies

composed as threnody lamentations of who was loved or

what was had and then lost. sorry, no! no way! from the

very beginning it’s always been about fearing your endings.

each one of you shivers at extinction’s awful finality!


you evolved in paradise and proceeded to heedlessly piss

on your own parade of accomplishments because you’ve

always been too afraid of each other’s differences to live

together as one species, indivisible by race or creed.

only the lonely


only the lonely


maybe tomorrow a new friendship can start but that's not

the only chance for no more sorrow you've got to take apart.


only the lonely know the heartaches you've been through

and only the lonely know how much I cry and cry for you.


there goes your dream baby, there goes your dreaming heart

they're gone forever and far apart, so let’s make a new start.


only the lonely know why I cry for you the way I always do,

because only the lonely always fear loneliness the way you do.


only the lonely think they know the way you feel tonight; and

when their hearts break they’ll know why this feeling ain't right.


he or she who is really for you is part of a mystery but is also part

of human folly’s greatest wish: to not be the only one who is lonely.