With a loving mind, cherish more than a child
    The hostile gods and demons of apparent existence,

        And tenderly surround yourself with them.

    Nourish them always with warm flesh and blood.
    With the hook of love and compassion,
             Befriend them and never dismiss them.
    
    If, with pure noble thought and enlightened resolve,
    You connect them to the sacred Dharma
    And they are freed and established in happiness,
    Then you, child, whoever you are,
    Will be my inseparable friend. 

Hear and attend and listen; for this is what befell and be-happened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild --as wild as wild could be -- and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself and all places were alike to him

Enigmas
      
You've asked me what the lobster is weaving
there with his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparentbell?
What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards
a new question touching on
the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone,
and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand
the electric nature of the ocean spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
in the deep places like a thread in the water?

I want to tell you the ocean knows this,
that life in its jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes
time has made the
petal
hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.

I walked around as you do, investigating
the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

The little girl saw her first troop parade and asked, "What are those?" "Soldiers." "What are soldiers?" "They are for war. They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as they can." The girl held still and studied. "Do you know . . . I know something." "Yes, what is it you know?" "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."

The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
     Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.
               Choose:
     For we meet by one or the other.

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, it makes them soggy and hard to light.

Begin with bodhicitta, do the main practice without concepts,

Conclude by dedicating the merit. These, together and complete,

Are the three vital supports for progressing on the path to liberation.

Be firmly concentrated yet loosely relaxed:

Here is an essential point for the View.

Just as gold is burnt, cut and rubbed,
Examine my words carefully and
Do not accept them simply out of respect

 A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.