Sacred Heart 14

Trailing my stick I go down to the garden edge,
call to a monk to go out the pine gate.
A cup of tea with my mother,
looking at each other, enjoying our tea together.
In the deep lanes, few people in sight;
the dog barks when anyone comes or goes.
Fall floods have washed away the planks off the bridge;
shouldering our sandals, we wade the narrow stream.
By the roadside, a small pavilion
where there used to be a little hill;
it helps out our hermit mood;
country poems pile one sheet on another.
I dabble in the flow, delighted by the shallowness of the stream,
gaze at the flagging, admiring how firm the stones are.
The point in life is to know what’s enough –
why envy those otherworld immortals?
With the happiness held in one inch-square heart
you can fill the whole space between heaven and earth.

Gensei 1623 – 1668 was a Japanese Buddhist monk who poetry focused on beauty and contemplation.

“The point in life is to know what’s enough…” Gensei’s morning walk is filled with the commonplace and the everyday. A cup of tea, a visit, wading a stream, writing poetry – what more is needed, what is missing?

To understand what is enough, to know when to stop is a wisdom usually won only through experience. So we add just one more seasoning to the soup; lay down just one more layer of paint on the canvas; work just a little harder for the raise; give up a little more freedom for the recognition.

It is the desire for MORE without realizes that more is a well that is never filled, a thirst that is never quenched, a hunger that is never satisfied no matter how much time, energy, or desire is expended. More is insatiable. Meanwhile, our wanting More blinds us to what is Enough.