Summary: ‘First, we braid grasses and play tug of war;<br> then we take turns singing and keeping a kickball in the air.<br> I kick the ball and they sing, they kick and I sing,<br> time is forgotten the hours fly.<br> People passing by point at me and laugh,<br> ‘why are you acting like such a fool’.<br> I nod my head and don’t answer.<br> I could say something, but why?<br> Do you know what’s in my heart?<br> From the beginning of time,<br> ‘just this, just this’.<br> With this Ryokan poem, Hoshi Kigaku Noah Roen ends his Dharma talk exploring the Blue Cliff Record 80, A New Born Baby. A timely koan in Kigaku’s life, just a week shy of his baby’s expected birth. In his inquiry, Kigaku gives us both science’s view on baby consciousness, the zen literature’s oft-referenced views on ‘…being like a child, like a newborn’ and his own anticipation and excitement to encounter this new consciousness.<br> <br>
