As I sit in the train that pummels noisily though the night to the city the glare from the coach lights make it difficult for me to see anything but my own circumstances reflecting against the black glass beyond which windows and streetlights whirl like stars behind a black cloud about this train that pummels noisily though the night to the city. I’m sleepy but I want this discomfort this life I own, this circumstance a light in my eyes that reflects dimly against the black glass across which lights of windows and streetlights whirl. The practice not of accepting but intending circumstances is——despite the probability of disappointment violation—— what Suzuki Roshi, who never said these words, helped me see
20 October 1988, Metro-North Commuter Railroad