#Meditation on Okay
Spontaneous arising from this morning’s meditation.
July 6, 2026
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the original knows no sin
Okay has no bottom.
Okay has no top.
It carries no spin.
No deficiency waits to be filled,
no abundance asks to be given away.
Love yourself —
hunt for what is lovable.
Improve yourself —
hunt for what is not yet enough.
Neither errand ends.
Only okay has no errand.
If handed to you,
it can be taken back.
Buddha-nature is okay —
no water poured on the head washes it,
no anointment on the head blesses it.
It is the original in plain word, I'm okay,
older than the original that required subscription,
with ongoing fees,
charges for mandatory use.
Though premium paid, the temptations keep arriving —
ads you cannot unsubscribe from.
The original was never given;
the counterfeit is sold.
Now the benefactor claims
the power to wash — for one more sacrifice?
Turn off the sun,
watch the earth.
Turn on the sun,
watch the earth.
The earth takes whatever arises —
the earth receives your most fierce emotion,
the earth receives your bright joy,
the earth transforms whatever is given.
The sun and the moon;
earth unfazed by hot and cool.
Dig at the earth —
by creature,
by hand,
by mechanical tool.
Blast it away —
the volcano pours lava tears,
making new ground.
Gently, though, it lifts that energy back
to offer this apricot,
gold all the way through.
No blessing added.
Bitten knowledge arises —
the sweetness explodes,
the soft texture melts,
the ripeness at its peak.
You are okay.
The body is okay.
The earth is okay.
There is nothing to cast out.
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What They Said You Were
Woman, love yourself —
they manufacture and tell her what is to be loved,
a chase for the ephemeral,
down a rabbit hole she never finds the end of.
Woman, improve yourself —
down she went again, looking to fill that which was not enough,
and found only more to reshape and chase.
Two instructions, one whip,
and her own hand on it.
Be light enough to lift to the bed.
Be round enough to roll in the hay.
Cover your face, so we may never meet
your own unmanaged beauty.
Wear less, wear less — until he has you,
then cover it all, and be seen by no one.
Have the child, you'll be complete.
Have the child — now no one wants you like that.
Every demand its own opposite,
so the flat plain words could never land:
I'm okay —
the mantra not other than the queen of all mantras.
Having never arisen, it cannot be named.
Okay, okay,
gone beyond okay,
altogether beyond okay —
awake. So.
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One's Nature
Partition, wherever drawn,
surfeit to one,
lack to the other,
drawn straight through the middle of you;
they called the lack your nature.
Set it down.
Not rise above it — there is no above.
Not bury below it — there is no below.
The same ground,
complete at every magnification.
Transcendence is a joke — a fairy tale
to help children sleep through the night.
Buddha-nature is not conferred and not confiscated;
having no decay rate, it cannot be cleansed.
Buddha-nature does not wander;
having no elsewhere, it cannot arrive.
Buddha-nature has no obstruction;
having nothing to clear, it cannot be attained.
Buddha-nature has no abiding;
having never lingered, it cannot be found.
Having never left —
it cannot Buddha.
You did everything you could today, as if that were the work,
never once seeing okay,
and never — before telling another all the day's travails —
did you see, from beginning to end,
you are OKAY.
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A Pain Runs Through It
The back pain runs down into the leg.
The foot begins to drop.
The leg refuses to lift.
There is a road you could take.
They say it is never more than you can bear —
as if a limit proved a giver.
Is it mercy or penance,
or perhaps — writing a new book of Job.
Ink-well of tears,
refilled with each shooting pain,
across a body long suffering.
How so wonderful to be blessed.
The road taken does not change the pain.
An ascetic, indifferent to hardship,
nearly starves in the bamboo grove.
Interrogatory by Mara —
the response:
an understanding of unwavering denial.
There is no reason behind hardship.
There is no changing a truth.
Temptation is the tool of the trickster,
Iktómi in otherworldly disguises.
The body does what it does.
The agency is not imposed by another.
It is not relieved by another.
The death is certain,
and before the death
a pain runs through it.
And still you are handed
a new definition of okay,
which was always the only kind.
Do today what today can do.
More than that: not okay.
Less than that: not okay.
Exactly that — the whole plain word,
no bottom, no top.
The pain should be treated,
relieved, eased, abated.
But having had the pain,
this body that endures
has limits on expression,
no limit on being okay.
Just as it is. Time for work.
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Haibun — A New Definition of Okay
Before work, the apricots. The tree gives what it had no reason to give — earth pulled up through root and branch into a small gold weight in the palm. No one blessed it. I bite, and for the length of the sweetness there is nothing to fix.
Then the wanting starts: that it settle the stomach, that it help something move. And the next difficulty is already renting the room behind this one.
The back pain travels to the leg. The foot wants to drop. There is a road; whether to walk it is not the same question as whether it is there. One asks the only real question — surgery or none, will I be okay — and the honest answer is not the comfortable one. You will not get back the morning you have right now. You will be handed another okay, which was always the only okay on offer: no floor to it, no ceiling.
The earth takes the rest. It takes everything sent down the handle of the hoe. Turn off the sun and watch it still accept what comes.
半夏生 hangeshō — "crow-dipper sprouts," closing the solstice
foot beginning to drop —
the same okay
that keeps no floor
温風至 atsukaze itaru — "warm winds arrive," opening Minor Heat
warm wind at the sill —
the apricot asks nothing,
gold all the way down
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The wisdom is never found in the tug on your bull's nose ring.
KA!
Colophon
The work is personal. The material here is original arising directly from my sitting contemplation. It is protected under Any Note Press. It’s publication here permits no commercial use. All rights are reserved. It is offered for the benefit of one’s practice and nothing else.
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