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Tag: enlightenment

Look Inward, Angel: common measure

Published on May 2, 2011

“As any fool could plainly see,
and you can see it plainly,”
were words my father spoke to me
in jest, sometimes, but mainly

to illustrate a simple point:
that often, a solution
is right in front of us, and needs
from us no contribution.

Perhaps he oversimplified,
attempting to be witty;
but nonetheless, some grain of truth
can be found in this ditty.

We know the truth, what’s right and wrong;
there’s no need of a teacher.
To find the essence of this life
requires no saint or preacher.

The wise men all say look within;
and still, we focus outward.
Is it because we’re deaf, or stupid?
Maybe we’re just cowards.

02 MAY 2011

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Abandon This Garbage: alcaics

Published on August 11, 2006

Oh wisdom seeking mendicant travelers,
your baggage and burdens are troubling handicaps;
they will not help you on your journey.
Abandon this garbage by the roadside.

If you would find some unforeseen adventure,
let drop your jaded world-weary illusions;
you have no need of those old crutches.
Use your own power to find the pathway.

Look inward, pilgrim: investigate carefully
what you have right now. Nothing is infinite
that has an ending, a start or finish;
if you see its edges, it’s not the source.

No dusty volume filling up shelving space
can provide answers; nor can just believing
in teachers, prophets, soldiers or saints.
The source of energy does not costume.

It is not waiting, patiently camouflaged
while you are wasting excuses and lifetimes.
It does its business, whether you are
singing in harmony or out of tune.

11 AUG 2006

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This is the oyster

Published on April 24, 2006

This is the oyster; why seek for the pearl?
There’s no escape plan for leaving this world
in my religion: no hereafter gold,
no burning embers, no cold of Sheol.

This is the medicine; why seek a pill
to flee reality, thinking you will
by any action change the universe,
except, perhaps, to make it a bit worse
with senseless struggle against so-called fate,
hedging your bets hoping it’s not too late.

This is the path you’re on; why second guess?
No point in leaving this life in a mess,
hoping salvation will come undeserved,
praying the universe doesn’t throw curves.

There is just oyster; that one grain of sand
turned to a pearl in the palm of your hand
is just some excrement to soothe the pain
of the endless ocean. Time and again
it waits at the shoreline to carry us out,
waits while we ponder, apostize and doubt.

This is the world that is; why seek one more?
Who knows what waits beyond the tide’s great roar?
This is your heaven, or this is your hell.
It too will pass away, after a spell.

24 APR 2006

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The Seeker’s Lament

Published on January 27, 2005

For forty years I’ve sought some kind of truth
and come up empty-handed, more or less.
What dreams I held like treasures in my youth
have lost their gleam; my hands, their tenderness.

The journey has not gone as I had planned,
nor have the self-prescribed instructions been much good.
The waters beyond my small plot of land
remain uncharted depths, and what sparse food

I gleaned from these great oceans has become
like horded manna, fit for only flies;
my touch has turned rare jewels to lumps of coal.
My tongue once loose with song has been struck dumb,
anesthetized by years of speaking lies.
Now, even my illusions cannot hold.

Along the rocky shore, I peer in vain
out in the mist that crowds the twilight shore
with eyes now worn and weak, their muscle strained
from nights in candlelight. There is no more

soft music in the wind that brings delight,
nor quiet silence where I find some peace.
Each moment brings no end, just fruitless fight;
and sleep, once fitful, brings me no release.

At midnight, when the world is calm and still
and secrets are exchanged between the veils,
I stand offstage, behind the curtain’s wall
and where the footlight shadows barely spill,
just listening to others’ wondrous tales,
and realize I’ve found nothing at all.

27 JAN 2005

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Samadhi

Published on January 13, 2005

Fumbling to ecstacy
One nerve cell at a time
Approaching some nirvana
Piecemeal, by the inch, sublime
At the end of fingertips
Extended like a drawl
Until the whole skin breathes in
each moment’s alcohol
From the toes along the chakras
glowing honeyed fire
as the entire body vibrates
with divine desire
Waiting, the anticipation
as the space grows close,
is almost as good as getting —
well, not quite almost.

13 JAN 2005

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Here-itic

Published on August 25, 2004

Here. This is the sound
of the world becoming whole:
one breath at a time.

Here. This is the way
that the world becomes awake:
one eye at a time.

Here. This is the place
where birth and death coexist:
one process, not two.

Here. This is the time
that defines the entire world:
each moment of now.

Here. This is the song
that the whole world is singing:
each thing in harmony.

Here. This is the part
where you add your unique voice:
part of the whole choir.

Here. This is the tune
from a forgotten hymnal:
the music of life.

Here. This is the law
that the whole world must follow:
Embrace life, or die.

Here. This is the fact
that we want to overlook:
We don’t own the world.

Here. This is the myth
that fuels our own destruction:
We are the whole world.

Here. This is the point
at which we each make a choice:
Living or dying.

25 AUG 2004

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Box Haiku

Published on June 22, 2004

Inside the small box
that is our experience
there is nothing new:

the folded edges
let in small amounts of light
to read old news by.

But the lid is loose —
a gentle push opens it;
look, there is a sky!

If you throw your weight
against the side, you can tilt
the whole world open.

Just another box
that may look like open space
but has edges, too.

Some spend their lifetimes
thinking the box protects them;
they worship cardboard.

What lingers outside
is violent, wild and risky:
it is fully alive.

Without much warning
it may devour your small box;
why die that slowly?

Life is not easy;
anyone who denies this
is selling something.

Look! Your box and mine
share a common boundary.
Let’s leave together.

22 JUN 2004

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