Book I

Foreword

Sylvia Chu has been a spiritual seeker her entire life.  Her adolescent awareness of the evanescent nature of shifting clouds seen from the roof of her home in Hong Kong ripened in adulthood into deep realization of the emptiness and impermanence of all things.  Her poems are grounded in insights received in spiritual practice as she makes clear in her description of the creative process of writing them: 

I started writing my “dawn wisdom” after daily morning meditation and reading.  I wrote my thoughts in short paragraphs first.  Then I rewrote the paragraphs succinctly by allowing myself around 17 syllables.  Usually, I could produce no more than two 17- syllable poems a day. These portable short “poems” were on little strips of paper that I carried and read during the day. They were teachings for myself to mull over their deeper meaning that day. Many earlier poems were thrown away after my day’s use, until Norman, my husband, asked me to save them for my children as memories.  Some of the poems in my Book I were such ‘salvaged’ poems.

The meditative process of reading Sylvia’s poems begins with a slow, repetitive savoring of the words of one poem, allowing those words to gradually still the mind and heart.  Once readers have made contact with their own interior silence they are free to let go of her words and open themselves to whatever insights and intuitions rise from their own depths.  If they wish they can give creative expression to these inner inspirations as a way to integrate them into daily life.

Becoming a Teacher   

After many years of meditation practice and having completed the Curriculum of Koan Studies of Sanbo Zen International, Sylvia was asked to teach by Abbot Ryoun Yamada Roshi of Sanbo Zen Intenational.   In her role as teacher she began to write the poems found in Zen Essence (Books I to V), to complement her talks.  Sylvia also studied with Gil Fronsdal, a Vipassana teacher, so that she could have "two hands," Zen and Vipassana, to meet the diverse needs of her students. 

The poems in Book IV, Fountains, Lanterns, and Paths of Hidden Treasures, are inspirations from nature, travels and human relationships.  It’s as if she has traveled full circle back to daily living after a long journey through deep silence and insightful exploration.  The fourth book reflects how ordinary life has been shaped by an enduring contemplative attitude that has deepened her human experience. In 2015, Sylvia endured a near death experience caused by an aortic dissection.  Buddhist teaching and practice supported her in the long recovery process which is the focus of Book IV.  A year later, after her recovery, Sylvia was invited by Ryoun Yamada Roshi to give a talk to an assembly of Zen teachers from that tradition.  In her talk she describes to her colleagues her near death experience in detail, including magnificence in the face of death immeasurably confirmed for her the truth of Buddhist insights and the important role that meditation practice can play at a time of extreme personal crisis. This talk is included in Book IV.  Fountains, Lanterns, and Paths of Happiness, Book V, also part of this Zen Essence poetry series, is also written after her surgery, a good twenty years later after Book l.

A Contemplative Eye

In addition to her poetic gifts, Sylvia’s photos and calligraphy of Chinese characters throughout the five books combine a contemplative eye and a rich visual aesthetic sense. The pictures “breathe” a sense of stillness, and convey a delicate beauty and atmosphere of mystery that complement her poetry.  What Sylvia “saw” in the changing clouds and spacious sky on the roof of her home during her teen years returns here in mature form.  Her photographs can provide an avenue into stillness and emptiness no less than her words.

A Gentle Invitation

When I asked myself how I would express the impact that Sylvia’s books had on me, two words immediately came to mind: gentle invitation.  Her poems and pictures invite us to slow down and take the time to really look and listen to the whole of our lives.  The whole of our lives includes our inner thoughts and feelings, our sensory experiences, our relationships to nature and to human beings, our joy and sorrow, our gratitude and terror, our pain and pleasure, our boredom and excitement.  Listen to all of it, she says.  Pay careful, reverent attention to the details, but also to what is mysterious and unfathomable even in what seems most commonplace and ordinary. She invites us to directly realize that beyond the familiar labels we give ourselves, we, too, are an unfathomable mystery, a “no self,” in which a Larger Life is always pulsing. 

The invitation she extends is a gentle one, respectful of our limits, our vulnerability and our freedom.   There are no harsh demands in her invitation, no absolute requirements about what must be done.  Rather, her approach maintains a sense of humor and balance.  It is flexible and inclusive, compassionate and aligned to the inner rhythms and needs of each individual.  She invites by example, sharing with us the fruits of her meditation and life experience.  She shows us that life can be surprising and unpredictable, painful and frustrating, but full of wonder and wisdom throughout.  Ultimately, her gentle invitation is to awaken to our true nature which is always already present even if we are having difficulty perceiving it at the moment.  If this kind of gentle invitation appeals to you, I am confident that you will find Sylvia Chu’s books a wise and challenging guide on your spiritual journey.

James Neafsey, D. Min.

Introduction

Fountain, Lanterns, and Paths of Wisdom, Book I, describes an initial stirring of the heart, which awakens the insight that all life is one existence in wholeness. This enlightenment experience moves one to realize the interdependence of things and to be compassionate towards them all. 

          To be nothing,
          there is simplicity; to be all,
          there is compassion.
          Love for everything reveals
          the deep spacious nature
          of who you are.    

With compassion and spaciousness, one is at ease, wise, in simplicity, and unaffected amidst joy or challenge. Compassion with wisdom; like the bird’s two wings, in balance, they fly high in unison.  They are also like two dancing partners, heart to heart complementing one another in oneness and freedom.

          Compassion and wisdom
          dance heart to heart or
          there is no dance at all.

The journey within is the yearning to find our true nature; who we really are.  When the ‘barriers’ or ‘gates’ between oneself and others are removed, we find the self as one with others, not only sitting on the zazen cushion but also in our daily life.  Dogen Zenji describes the exploration of self-discovery as:

      To study the way is to study the self.     
      To study the self is to forget the self.     
      To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things and     
      To remove the barriers between one’s self and other.  

“To forget the self" is the full realization of our oneness with all sentient beings.  Spacious oneness includes all, in interdependent co-arising.  Oneness seeds compassion and proclaims a life of unity and responsibility.  In this union of wholehearted giving, oneness forgets the separation between self and others.  

To study the self is to know yourself.  When you know you are everything in oneness, you have infinite compassion.  You realize that loving all is loving yourself.  With compassion and heartfelt responsibility, one is calm, amiable, wise, and unaffected amidst joy or challenge.  Coming full cycle, you are back to the ‘marketplace’ of the world fully engaged, now at a deeper level but also on a neverending depth.

Silence and zazen are my core daily Zen practices and I write additional poems under these titles for my Zen Essence series, Fountains, Lanterns, and Paths of Enlightenment, Book II and of Freedom, Book III. 

From the experiences of “Silence & Zazen, (Chapters 1 and 2)” one realizes the importance of “Great Teachers, (Chapter 3),” and the impermanence of every moment in “Life, (Chapter 4).”  With this realization, one nurtures in “Spiritual Deepening, and Love (Chapters 5 and 6,)” to be in unity with all things.  With such an experience and with practice, one is able to manifest the fullness and radiance of our humanity in “Compassion, and Wisdom (Chapters 7, 8)” with dedicated responsibility.     

Sylvia Young Chu