The Inner Passage Copyright © 2011 by ko shin Bob Hanson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author. The Photos are all the creative work of ko shin, Bob Hanson, the author and preparer of this book and his poet friends, with their permission. Please contact at koshin@centurytel.net , for permission to reproduce any part of this book.

Some of this poetry will be on You Tube, http://www.youtube.com/user/zenman1940

Ko shin's Blogs: http://chasingwindmillswhynot.blogspot.com/

June 2010: http://adharmabumreportingfromnaropa.blogspot.com/

June/July, 2011 www.2011adharmabumreportingagainfromnaropa.blogspot.com

These pages are dedicated to my family and friends, especially, Karen, Adia, Alessandria, Houston, Natasha, Seth, Finn, Elisa, Tanya, Willie, Anika, William, Orlando, Elena, Davy, Akila, Zak, Dan, Katie, Liv and Jack.

I want to thank in a special way my grade school & lifelong friend Roger Sween and his wife Pat. Roger took the time to read through the draft and edit and make wonderful suggestions.

There are so many, thanks.

Julie, Lisa, Anne Waldman, Jaime Manrique, all my colleagues and teachers at Naropa each summer, the fine friends at Woodland Pattern Book Center on East Locust in Milwaukee, the Appleton Reading group, Vicki and the gang at the Princeton Public Library, the Thursday Morning “group”, Ed Ruen, James Mosley and the Hairy Potter, all push me, encourage me, and correct me. My life has truly been graced and blessed. My teachers of Zen, Tozen Akiyama, Tonen O’Connor, & Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat, deep bows of gratitude.

Before Enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water

After Enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water

Wake Up

(Old Zen saying)

Many thanks to Roger Sween, lifelong friend, Bruce Dethlefsen, the present Wisconsin State Poet, Jaime Manrique, & Tyrone Williams, two of my teachers at Naropa University, 2010 & 2011 respectively, Gerald W. Bertsch, Poet and friend, Ralph Singh Rakieten, A friend from the Sikh Village of Gobind Sadan in India, E. J. McAdams, Poet and friend from New York City, Karen J. Ingvoldstad, my partner and wife, David Harris, Poet and friend, and The Brothahood, a Muslim Rap Group I met at the Parliament in Melbourne, December, 2009, James Mosley a colleague and friend from my days at Hephatha Lutheran Parish until now and Ed Ruen, a long time friend and colleague, and Carlos Soto-Román, Naropa SWR, 2011, gave me permission to use their poems here.

Learning another spiritual path by three shots in the night, and death….

He heard three shots. It was late and given where he lived, not unusual. The shots were close; at least they felt that way. Jimmy ran to the window and carefully pushed the curtain back and saw a body lying on the sidewalk, just down the block from his two-up. He ran to call 911, but the sirens were already loud, maybe coming just around the corner from the precinct.

He ran back and took one more look, Oh god he thought, that looks like Ali, his high school friend and classmate.

He grabbed his coat and ran down the stairs and out into the street. Ali was gone, dead at a very young age.

Jimmy knew that Ali and his family were often the brunt of cultural & religious hatred. It seems, people, if they meet someone different, think their dangerous, or something. Since 9/11 it had gotten worse. “Why? Why my friend, was a Muslim?” The Hood was so culturally mixed. “It doesn’t make sense” He thought.

It was a sad night, Jimmy hardly slept as I am sure as his neighbors experienced the same sense of fear, loneliness and anger. Everyone knew that someone in the hood was not happy with an Arab family living nearby. Could that be the reason, or was it theft or a promise broken. Ali was a friend to everyone.

Everyone showed up for the funeral at a Mosque on the other side of the city. It was nice, the burial was really an experience, lowering Ali into the ground and the prayers so for Jimmy, different as funerals go. What a way to learn and experience another spiritual practice. Three shots, a young life, what now? Jimmy took the bus home, a strange sense of quietness over took him. He had learned something about life today, death has a lesson for all of us. Three shots, silence broken, life taken, & life continues…Ali

(Read at the Student Reading Week Three, SWP, Naropa, 2011 and edited by Classmates and Dr. Williams)

A Poem by Dr. Tyrone Williams:

Severed Haikus

Wish you were there

where a flowerpot sits in the window, panting,

tongue hanging out, a

leaky faucet drumming its desperate aimless message

Dr Williams teaches at Xavier University and was Workshop Guide, Week Three at Naropa University Summer Writing Program, 2011, this poem is used with permission.

A Poem By Carlos Soto-Román

Afuera la palabra

es el antídoto.

Aunque en realidad

la palabra y el silencio

son la muralla del vacío.

Algo así como el límite

del desconcierto.

Outside, the word

is the antidote.

Although in fact

word and silence

are the walls of the void.

Something like the limit

of bewilderment.

Carlos Soto-Román was born in Valparaíso, Chile. He is the author of Philadelphia’s Notebooks (Otoliths, 2011). He curates the cooperative anthology of contemporary U.S. poetry Elective Affinities. He lives in Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia, September 24^th, 2011, I, Carlos Soto-Román, authorize Bob Hanson to use the poem of my authorship included in this document for the purposes he deems appropriate.