Letters to Esmeralda

John Rhodes emphasizes the cliche' of ordinary life as the place that the enlightened person dwells as in the Zen Saying, "Before Enlightenment, "Chopping Wood Carrying Water. After Enlightenment Chopping Wood Carrying Water." "He keeps one foot in this world and one foot in the other world", as Meher Baba said. John uses the pun and the cliche' in his poems as does the Zen Master use his stick to whack the unattentive mind of the beginner meditator awake to the common beauty and enlightenment all him.