Just came across "Essay on Snow" by the poet Allen Hoey, from the Winter 2003 issue of The Hudson Review, reprinted in The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004, edited by Philip Zaleski. This in particular spoke to me:
6 (After Huang Po)
How often does the world around you hinder
your perceiving perfect Mind? The least mishap
blurs your sense of deeper principles. Often,
then, you try to blot the world, to forget what
troubles you to quiet your mind or to grasp
principles that elude your thoughts, as the moon
eludes the fisherman's net. But don't confuse
the world with Mind or mishaps with principles.
If you let your mind become empty, the world
will seem the emptiness it is: if you let
principles go, the mishaps will pour away.
No -- don't use your mind in this perverted way!
Don't fear that, when emptying your mind, you will
lose yourself in emptiness. Your own mind is
emptiness. Only the foolish abandon
the world and cling to thought; be wise -- let go of
your thoughts and drift like a snowflake in the world.
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