Rusty Ring

I first encountered the oft-cited invocation below in a newspaper column by United Congregational minister Dale Turner. At the time I ass...

I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas Just like the kind I used to know With raincoats dripping And blue tarps whipping As thirty...

Matsuo Bashō (芭蕉) was a wandering Zen hermit of the Edo period, as well as an accomplished poet. Popularly considered the father of mo...

(Here's another bullfrog [Rana (Lithobates) catesbeiana], rather better lit and differentiated from her background. She's a w...

even one-penny fireworks... ooo! ahh! Issa (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Here's insight we can use. In this short meditation, Rusty Ring favourite Peter Mayer sums up the lesson we all should have l...

I saw this film when it was new, beside a beautiful young woman with whom I did not yet realise I was in love. She was also a German...

Died aged 18 near this spot. April 25th, 1915. Did his best. Australian tombstone at Gallipoli. (Photo courtesy of Chris Sansbur...

The warbler wipes its muddy feet on plum blossoms – Issa ( Plum Garden, Kamata, by Utagawa Hiroshige, courtesy of Rawpixel.c...

They warn you not to meet your heroes, to leave them unknown quantities, to avoid disappointment. But have you considered this: ...

to passing autumn the pampas grass waves goodbye, goodbye Shirao

doves flush from the maples art deco airframes torpedoing through the branches rolling left and right (Photo courtesy of Imran Shah an...

No board, no checkers Calligraphy worth nothing Round-eyed hermit monk

Could they be sutras? In the temple well frogs chant Kansetsu (POV photo of well courtesy of Gary Meulemans and Unsplash.com.)

Shítóu Xīqiān (called Sekitō Kisen in Japan) is having a moment. Fixture of contemporary Soto, his Sandōkai , a memorable exposition of...

Eschew temples. Abandon theology. Ignore priests. Walk the path. Don't waste time. (Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a g...

Winter solitude— In a world of one colour The sound of wind. Bashō

In killing my Self The monster is defeated Eat my Zen, dickweed ("Enrag'd Monster" courtesy of John Hamilton Mortimer,...

Forget your perfect offering There's a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in Leonard Cohen, Zen hermit m...

winter rain time to unseal the new tea Issa (Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer .)