To your hermitage here on top of the mountain I
have climbed without stopping … Sorry though
I am to be missing you, you have become my
meditation.
—CH’IU WEI
My master’s gone to gather herbs. I only know he’s
on this mountain, but the clouds are too deep to
know where.
—CHIA TAO
The missing monk is present in every age.
He is the one everybody writes about but never finds.
He is the one busy being what everyone else
is writing about.
If you run up mountains after bricks and stones
you will never find him.
The courtyard will always be abandoned. The cave
will always be empty.
The monk is resting under the eaves of your mind.
He takes his ease in the interior bamboo grove.
He doesn’t harp on your delusions and infirmities.
He is waiting for you to call.
He is waiting for you to make the same confession
I make to you now: I am the missing monk.
I am always off gathering herbs somewhere.
I am never where I look, but I am always returning
You’ll know me by the eyes.
Stay here, and enjoy
my simple fare: radishes and moonlight on this
crumbling wall.