"To Be a Good Buddhist Is Ensnarement" by Jenny Xie

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 30, 2018   To Be a Good Buddhist Is Ensnarement   Jenny Xie

The Zen priest says I am everything I am not.   In order to stop resisting, I must not attempt to stop resisting.   I must believe there is no need to believe in thoughts.   Oblivious to appetites that appear to be exits, and also entrances.   What is there to hoard when the worldly realm has no permanent       vacancies?   Ten years I've taken to this mind fasting.   My shadow these days is bare.   It drives a stranger, a good fool.   Nothing can surprise.   Clarity is just questioning having eaten its fill.                Copyright © 2018 Jenny Xie. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem brings in the kinds of paradoxes that appear in Zen teachings, which are often deployed to short-circuit the analytical mind. Insight and understanding arrive through a leap, and by letting the intellect and dualistic thought fall away. I've always been attracted to the idea that what is worth knowing lies beyond reason. To cease the dogged pursuit for answers, and to stay with a vast unknowing—this is a balm." —Jenny Xie   Jenny Xie is the author of Eye Level (Graywolf Press, 2018), recipient of the 2017 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. She lives in New York City and teaches at New York University.   Photo credit: Teresa Mathew Poetry by Xie   Eye Level (Graywolf Press, 2018) "The Law of the Apple" by Edwin Torres "En Route" by Darcie Dennigan "Poem to Play" by Hannah Brooks-Motl March Guest Editor: Meghan O'Rourke   Thanks to Meghan O'Rourke, author of Sun in Days (W. W. Norton, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about O'Rourke and our other guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038