The Bodhisattva Vow (poem)

Let me be the one to hold you
like your mother did
when you were hurting, and
wipe away all those tears
until you fell asleep,
forgetting your hurts in the morning.

Oh, I am the bed you lie on,
the chair you sit on,
the ear who listens, and
the heart who truly hears
as you lay there, crying
in this wilderness called Reality.

Let me free you from the pain
caused by your desire for comfort
and make my words your golden rule
until the Buddha calls to you.
Then you shall uncover buddha-nature
to blossom in the depths of your heart.

Let me be the bed you lie on,
the chair you sit on,
the ear that listens, and
the heart that truly hears
as you sit there, crying
in this wilderness called Reality.

Before I met you - poem

Before I met you
I thought I would die alone.
Before you graced my life,
I thought it was all over.
But now that I found you,
it's like you saved me
once again from myself.
And I thank you from
the bottom of my heart.

Today I told you
my wishes for us both,
all the secrets I saved
to share with someone
just like you forever.

Before I met you
I knew I would die alone.
Before you touched my heart,
I thought I was all alone.
But now that you found me,
it's like I've been saved
once again from myself.
And I thank you with all my heart.

I Can't Bind Your Heart to Mine (poem)

If I took you in to be my own
how do I know you won't run away?
Even if I provided for you,
I can't bind your heart to mine.

Here I am, ready to taste love again.
Then you come along, and I want you.
Am I really a fool to fall in love?
Or, would this happen to any other guy?

If I took you in to be my own
how do I know you won't run away?
Even if I provided for you,
I can't bind your heart to mine.

Now that I have you, I can't let you go.
It's always me thinking "mine" forever.
So what if you leave me for another,
do I just wait until you come back to me?

If I took you in to be my own
how do I know you won't run away?
Even if I provided for you,
I can't bind your heart to mine.

If I treated you as my very own,
I can't be sure if you'd honor me
by being only faithful to me.
I can't bind your heart to mine.

If I took you in to be my own
how do I know you won't run away?
Even if I provided for you,
I can't bind your heart to mine.
No, I can't bind your heart to mine.

Japanese is the Heart of My Soul (poem)

where I go,
washa ga zenzen ikemasen.
whatever I do,
washa no kimochi
ga wakarimasen.
I don't feel OK alone.
I feel alright with you.

Much of my heart wo eigo
ga wakarimasu, but Nihongo
is the mother of my soul.

Oh...
when I smile;
washa ga zenzen asubomasen.
how can I play?
anata no kimochi
I cannot fathom at all.
Do I know you very well?

Much of my heart wo eigo
ga wakarimasu, but Nihongo
is the mother of my soul.

Ah...
Chotte made kudasai,
but don't wait on me,
just wait for me.
Washa no passion
oboette de yo?
We are alike, you and I.

Much of my heart wo eigo
ga wakarimasu, but Nihongo
is the mother of my soul.

Oh...
Anata ga totemo ii,
I like you very much.
Washa no genki ga deshita,
so we get along nice.
Konomama ga zenzen irimasen,
at least for now, I think.

where I go,
washa ga zenzen ikemasen.
whatever I do,
washa no kimochi
ga wakarimasen.
I don't feel OK alone.
I feel alright with you.

where I go,
washa ga zenzen ikemasen.
whatever I do,
washa no kimochi
ga wakarimasen.
I don't feel OK alone.
I feel alright with you.

The Smile of Unconditional Love (poem)

When I am down,
when I am broken-hearted,
all I can do is
smile in the face of darkness
until the hurt goes away.

Oh, this smile lifts me
up beyond dark despair
that I forget my loneliness
and feel no pain at all!
I got love unconditional
in my heart that it show
on my face in that smile!

When I am down,
when I am lonely and hurt,
this is what I do:
laugh in the face of darkness
until the pain goes away.

Oh, my heart is uplifted
and I've forgotten the pain!
The laughter comes so easily
that all I have left to show
is this smile on my face.
Happiness has found me at last,
and I am ready to meet the day!

When I am up,
when I feel satisfied,
this is what I know:
unconditional love helps me
to endure another day.
Because I am up,
because I am all smiles,
no hurt or pain lasts too long.
For I can last another day.

Getting Over the Lost and Lonely (poem)

For days on end, I thought
of you, only to realize:
I can't be your Jesus,
I can only be my personal Buddha.
No matter how hard I try,
all my wishful thinking
will not cure another soul.
All that I can do
is to try to nurture
the friends who are not lost
in the castles of the mind.
The only thing I can do
for the lost and lonely
is to just let them be.

Serendipity and Anguish

When I woke up this afternoon
I was missing something,
but couldn't find it.

An old friend is lost and lonely, unable to move forward in his life.

So I took a bath to reconsider,
and felt dizzy laying there,
thinking about things I cannot change
and forgetting about what I can change.

Me losing sleep can't make my friend better, for lost sleep will harm me.

Then it hit me:
I can't change my friends;
that is what I must accept.
I can only change my attitude;
that is what I can change.

After that I had a cup of herbal tea, and wrote down this piece about serendipity and anguish.

An Ancient Unconditional Love (poem)

It has been said
that the Japanese are
descended of the gods;
this refers to kami,
the spiritual ancestors
of all Japanese.
In essense, it is but love unconditional.

Westerners know such love as "God".
In choosing my path,
love unconditional clothes me,
nourishes me, soothes me,
and brings peace to me.

Although it may appear
that my ego talking,
this is all due
to convention of language;
there is no sense of I,
me or mine involved.
There is only love unconditional.

A Sacred Love (poem)

She rained on me,
but kept me warm.
He shone on me,
and tussled my hair
in the wind.

Together heaven and earth,
and I have this
wild and crazy oneness.

We have this love,
a sacred love
that few mortals
dare comprehend.

Supposed "World's Largest Uncut Diamond" Worthless

This diamond is currently worthless uncut. The fact that the diamond mine from which it came is unknown makes the diamond community doubtful about its existence.

Personally, I smell a scam.

However, it looks nice and big, like a baseball.

Busting the Three Myths about Marijuana

Reporters have been recently fear-mongering about marijuana, again.

It makes you go mad, causes lung disease and skin cancer, they cry, but use bad science to exploit fear in people.

Marijuana Increases the Risk of Psychosis by 40%: This one turned out to be totally wrong. Apparently a correlation between marijuana use and psychosis doesn't necessarily mean that marijuana caused the psychosis. Many of the researchers made this clear in their findings, but reporters left it out. Furthermore, none of the stories on this topic explained that the risk of psychosis is small, so a 40% increase isn't that significant to begin with. Reporters also failed to observe that massive increases in marijuana use over the past century have not corresponded with increased rates of psychosis.

Comment: in that study, scientists discovered that if you've been using marijuana since you were 12, you stand a 40 percent chance of developing a psychosis. However, few studies have found that if a person aged 40 starts smoking marijuana would develop a psychosis.

If anything, anxiety would be reduced. With psychosis being a possible side effect of unrelieved anxiety, I think any scientist investigating psychosis is being bought off by pharmaceutical companies with vested interest in their anti-psychotic medications.

Smoking a Joint is as Bad For Your Lungs as 5 Cigarettes: This report also turned out to be almost entirely bogus. Shockingly, "air flow" was the only category (of several) in which marijuana was determined to be more harmful. Researchers stated that marijuana was 2.5 to 5 times more harmful than tobacco in this category, which reporters simply rounded up to 5 for the headline (behold the lofty journalistic standards of Reuters). Reporters also failed to mention conclusive research proving that marijuana does not cause lung cancer; a notable omission since "bad for your lungs" likely implies cancer for many readers. Finally, media reports failed to explain that marijuana users consume far less per day, and do not continue using for nearly as many years as tobacco smokers.

Comment: bad science is the leading cause of anxiety, and journalist are the biggest cause of it.

Marijuana May Cause Skin Cancer: I don't know anything about skin cancer, so I won't attempt to refute the findings of this Harvard study. The manner in which it was reported, however, leaves much to be desired. The FOX News headline reads "Study: Marijuana Use May Cause Skin Cancer." Only upon reading the article does the reader discover that only one extremely rare form of skin cancer has been associated with marijuana, and that the researchers claim that more research is needed. Furthermore, only people with weakened immune systems are even susceptible to this infection. A more appropriate headline would have been "Study: Marijuana May Cause Skin Cancer Under Very Rare Circumstances."

In short, anti-pot propaganda is based on bad science.

It makes me wonder why they fear the most harmless plant in the world.

Could it be because without control the anti-pot fanatic feel powerless? I think so.

13 hours away (poem)

You know how much I love you;
in confiding in me, you sealed your fate.
We both know how much we care about each other,
that I thought the distance can't keep us apart.
Well, it looks to me that I was wrong,
but I don't ever think I am wrong
to be in love with you, to be in love with you.

Oh, I am 13 hours away from being there,
but that doesn't stop me from chasing your heart.
For love is not daunted by the distance,
only by the lack of faith in it.
And when I say that I love you, I don't lie.

You know how much I love you,
and I can't let go of you even if I tried.
We both have our own friends; but I just hope
that one day, we meet and see how things go...
Hold on for another day, but don't forget me.
Well, it looks to me that I am right
but I don't ever think I am right
to force you to love me, as much as I love you.

Oh, i am 13 hours away from being there,
but that doesn't stop me from chasing your heart.
For love is not daunted by the distance,
only by the lack of faith in us.
And when I say that I love you, I speak truth.

Oh, I am 13 hours away from being there.
The bus could bring me to you, you know,
but we can't ever justify the meeting when
you're not ready and afraid to love me more
than just as a friend, though I love you dearly.

How to Solve the Panhandler Problem

I suggest panhandlers should be licensed.

If they are making money, then they are running a business.

They should be placed in the panhandler guild, and have their GST checks confiscated to pay for the guild program.

Their first license could be $10, and their locations rented from the city for $10/month.

If there are 5000 panhandlers in Toronto, then this means $1.17 million to fund the panhandlers guild by civil servants including instructions on how to be a legitimate panhandler.

The $50000 for licenses could fund the homeless shelters, and so could the $600000 for location rentals.

In total $1.82 million in revenue could be generated to fund this growing industry.

Everything else should be exempted from taxation as members of the panhandlers guild are charity cases.

Being Human

It's really hard to be human, and still be good.

There's so much temptation around, a person can't help but be naughty some of the time.

This is when the adage of "to err is human; to forgive, divine" works well with the meditation which leads to the pure mind, the bodhi mind, nirvana.

It doesn't mean to not make mistakes; it means to forgive oneself.

It means the meditation of forgiveness is the way to the pure mind.

Happiness

Essentially, only one condition is needed to lead a happy life. If the condition is fulfilled, I think one can be happy. And the condition can be fulfilled by anyone.
The secret to being happy lies in rendering one’s service. That means dedicating oneself to an individual, society and/or State. Although this is common sense or a normal spirit, many people have failed to exercise it in reality, and consequently, society has become unsound.

　What prevents people from being at others service is self-centeredness, to put ego before considering the circumstances of others. All of us innately have both the desire to be at someone’s service and to remain selfish. The question is which desire we choose to give into.

　What impressed me most during my foot pilgrimage in Shikoku was the service-mindedness of local folks toward pilgrims known as O-henro-san. When I asked them why they were so willing to show so much hospitality, they said: “We get the blessing as well. Our business is thriving because of what we do.” This kind of spirit is based on Oriental culture. Yet, there is a similar way of thinking in the Western world, as well. Western merchants in general consider a donation to, say, a social welfare program as an act to bring happiness also to themselves. There is a passage in the Bible that says, “Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.” In other words, the service is something people do for God. In Shikoku, it is believed that Kukai (Kobo Daishi), the founder of the Buddhist sect of Shingon, walk along with O-henro-san on their pilgrimage and the hospitality shown by the locals is actually directed at Kukai. I felt this great spirit remained strongly alive throughout Shikoku. As it is conveyed to children at home and school, most schoolchildren cheerfully greet passing by O-henro-san.

The engine to nurture such a service spirit，I must say, is, basically, love. As far as true love goes, loving someone is more important than being loved by someone. This providence of love is also based on the teaching of Jesus Christ. “If you wish to be loved, you must show love first.” -- Yugatsuru

Nihon Bito Monogatari / Story of a Japanese Man (poem)

Where am I in this world of yours,
doko kakere de yo ka?
Am i nothing but a gruff voice
trying to control your life, then?
Nan da ka, nani de yo?
Washa no kokoro, tonde tonde yo.

Am I just invisible,
do I have an existence?
Demo, anata no migi ni.
Where am I in this world of yours,
you got it all to yourself,
Aitsu no boyfriend ga yuppontoi de nai.
Aitsu no lover wa anobito desu ka,
that american boy i saw you with last night.

Oh, where am I in this world of yours,
doko kakere de yo ka?
Am I nothing but an embarassment
lost in your previous life, then?
Nan da ka, nani de yo?
Washa no kokoro, tonde tonde yo.


Here I am, a lost and lonely man.
Washa ga anata no tomodachi de yo.
While you're off with your boyfriend,
washa ga totemo lonely, totemo lost...
Who are you to treat me in this way, ka?

Where am i in this world of yours,
doko kakere de yo ka?
Am I nothing but a gruff voice
trying to control your life, then?
Nan da ka, nani de yo?
Washa no kokoro, tonde tonde yo.

cuddle whore - poem

i'm sitting here with my sweetie on the couch.
if there's nothing in the word that i like best,
it's the touch of a good woman in my arms.

oh, i'm such a cuddle whore,
it's ridiculous.
i like to cuddle so much
i almost like it more than sex.

you're sitting here beside me in my arms, dear.
if i hold you close to me, will you draw near me.
it's the touch of you that really gets to me.

oh, i'm such a cuddle whore,
it's ridiculous.
i like to cuddle so much
i almost like it more than sex.

[bridge]
if we grow old in each other's arms,
let's not forget how to hold each other.
if we part ways, then let's plan to visit soon
so we never forget how to cuddle. oooooh...

i'm such a cuddle whore,
it's ridiculous.
i like to cuddle so much
i almost like it more than sex.

oh, a cuddle whore just like me
will never put up a fuss.
i like to cuddle so much
it's a substitute for sex.

oh, i'm such a cuddle whore,
it's ridiculous.
i like to cuddle so much
i almost like it more than sex.

oh, i'm such a cuddle whore,
it's ridiculous.
i like to cuddle so much
i almost like it more than sex.