Sunday, April 23, 2006

Gion-Gion

Jizo and his new bicycle...

Well, this time, I am the one to be fished


Mysterious gate

a typical street

Gion
Fancy a meal? This is a restaurant
To the look of things, the chap always sleeps!
Gion. Doing what some people call "useless sight-seeing". Because may be they just cannot see. Or think they are the only one to see.
You see (do You see?) I really enjoy being vain, loving art, following beauty, music, poetry, beautiful women, just noticing here and there little miracles. Never been interested in cars, bikes, football, fights, I am not one of the lads.
Mike Cross told me that Niwa Zenji loved playing with dolls as a young child, and getting dressed up... Let's say that I was pretty much the same, but I always prefered the company of women, everywhere.
So, Gion. Not much to say, come over! I would say this place, much to my surprise, is pure magic. Like "Le Marais" or my beloved "Montmartre" in Paris. Places people always talk about and yet, incredible wonder unfolds before your eyes. And yet herons, flowers, stones, girls, old monks, school students, kids, waters, trees are speaking their wonderful truth.
Welcome to all of you in my broken heart.

5 Comments:

Blogger Mike Cross said...

The relinquishing of all views:

The wonderful Zazen he preached,

Using the Means, which is compassion.

I bow to Gautama.


Every person has his or her own body, and his or her own mind. But hanging onto my habitual body and mind, and dropping off my habitual body and mind are totally opposite conceptions.

Do not give us this bullshit, Pierre, about your broken heart, and about seeing yourself as a fraud. It is just an advertizing campaing. Your old heart is totally in tact and you are hanging onto it with every fibre of your being. You think, just as much as you did when I first met you however many years ago it was, that you are the one who is right.

No Pierre, you are not right. You are wrong. If you are suffering now, it is just because of your wrong behaviour in the past. Don't blame Japanese men in uniform for doing their daily job. You are the victim only of your own stupidity. As I am, so you are.

Of what use is your sight-seeing to anybody else besides you? I call your sight-seeing useless because, from the viewpoint of your vow to cross over all living beings before you cross over yourself, that is what your sight-seeing is: utterly useless.

When I watch Match of the Day, I watch it, knowing it to be a useless self-indulgence. I don't claim it to be a true manifestation of who I really am. To let the original features appear is the purpose of sitting in the full lotus posture, with body, with mind, and dropping off body and mind.

Nagarjuna bows to Gautama. Turlur indulges himself. Do not kid yourself, and do not try to persuade others, that you are bowing to Gautama when you are only indulging yourself. If you wish to indulge yourself, get on with it. But in so doing, don't you dare give yourself the airs of one who bows to Gautama when your actual behaviour is not that, at all.

You bloody fake, Pierre. You bloody fake who does not know at all what a bloody fake he is.

2:43 AM  
Blogger Mike Cross said...

Sight-seeing of Japanese relics is your thing, Pierre.
Don't confuse your thing and the Buddha's thing.
To sit in lotus with body, with mind, and dropping off body and mind:
Just this is the Buddha's one great thing.
Relative to this, things with impressive sounding Japanese names like takuhatsu, rakusu, sesshin, koan, mondo, jizo, o-tera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, have no importance at all.
Actually, to me they are worse than unimportant: they emit an offensive stench of so-called Japanese Zen Buddhism, i.e. fake Dharma. And, despite my efforts over these past few years, you still stink of them.

Have I made myself clear? I am afraid not. I would like to give it to you more directly than this. But for now this is the best that I can do.

4:09 AM  
Blogger Taigu said...

Very clear (and loud). Shouting rude words is definitely not the way of the smelly bloody fake I am.

6:21 PM  
Blogger oxeye said...

mike cross? we gave you up for dead.. had a few too many pints again tonight i see. oh well, some things never change. kanpai!

6:29 PM  
Blogger NYC TAXI SHOTS said...

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10:58 AM  

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