Author Archives: Genju

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drawing the line

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I promised Carol at ZenDotStudio that I would draw lines this weekend.  So I did.

It was surprising how difficult drawing a line can be.  I mean, it’s not just about getting up the energy to do something that may have gone by the wayside over weeks or months or years.  It’s not just about facing the what if’s and the if only’s that tend to haunt things-let-go-for-long.  It’s not just about the anger, resentment, sadness, depletion, oh-I-should-have-done-this-sooner.  It’s not just about anything real except maybe that heart-pounding moment before the brush kisses the paper and the mind shuts off and the hand becomes an alien.

It’s just about drawing the line.

Drawing it as “Yes.”

Drawing it as “No.”

Drawing it as “Oh, how I want this to be different but it isn’t going to be.”

Drawing it as “I thought I knew how to do this but not any more so start again.”

Drawing and seeing I’m outside the lines.

Drawing and knowing I’m out of line, at the end of the line.

Drawing down the page, the moon.

Ink

as teacher, dharma, and old friend,

showing me how to let go.

A poem:

The End of the Line

Carefully try to remember what
it is that you are doing.  “How
do you do?  How do you like
what you do?”  are you going
to continue in the same wasteful
and thoughtless fashion?

Philip Whalen in What Book!?  Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop, edited by Gary Gach

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chickpea soup

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The Chickpea and the Cook

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it’s being boiled.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

“Don’t you try to jump out.
You think I’m torturing you.
I’m giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

“Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this.”

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
“Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can’t do this by myself.

“I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention
to his driver. You’re my cook, my driver,
my way into existence. I love your cooking.”

The cook says,
“I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time,
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

“My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your teacher.”

Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

My favourite Chickpea Soup served on our Days of Mindfulness

1 cup garbanzo beans (canned or soaked and cooked from dried beans)
6 cups water or vegetable broth
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp saffron threads
salt and pepper
1 bunch spinach (about 1 pound)
(mushrooms if you wish)


Saute onions in olive oil until soft and translucent.  Add garlic and cook
another minute or two.  Put in beans with cooking broth or water.  Add the
saffron threads and mild amount of salt and black pepper.  Let it stew.  Add
spinach after washing leaves.  Cook until spinach wilts.  Check seasoning
and serve.

Serves 4-6 people.  Recipe doubles well.

Thank you for practicing and may you be nourished,

Genju