Rev. Jerome Peterson died at San Francisco Zen Center on December 12th

.
When the action is like lightning, it is futile to stand there thinking;
when the thunder booms in the the sky, it is too late to cover your ears.
To fly the red banner of victory overhead and whirl the twin swords
behind the ears, you need discernment of eye and familiarity of hand.
Some lower their heads and stand there thinking, trying to figure
conceptually; they don't realize they are seeing innumerable ghosts
in front of their skulls. Now tell me, without getting trapped 
in the conceptual facility, without getting stuck in gain and loss, 
if something is brought up to awaken you, how do you respond?


Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, trans. Thomas Cleary

+

Apportez le dessert

My favorite last-words quote used to be that of Oscar Wilde, who reportedly said "Either that wall-paper goes or I go," before expiring in a squalid hotel room in Paris in 1900. He lies underneath an unimaginably odd piece of tomb statuary that looks like an ad for an Aztec package delivery service (someone has chopped off most of the penis on the statue; the little red spots are lipstick smears):


But truly the best quote of all was spoken by the great-aunt of the famous gastronome and food writer Jean-Anthelme de Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826). Death came for her at age 100 while she was finishing her dinner, and she said to her servant: "Quickly, I am about to die, fetch the dessert."

Requiescat Jim Carroll, obiit Sept 11, 2009

There will always be a poem
I will climb on top of it and come
In and out of time,
Cocking my head to the side slightly,
As I finish shaking, melting then
Into its body, its soft skin

-- Jim Carroll, "Poem," from Void of Course (1998)