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Tag: enlightenment

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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Speak Low: an alcaic

Published on April 1, 2004

If someone listens intently, patiently
for something beyond audible sensation
each moment becomes sacred silence
embracing the hearer into being

If someone watches quietly, carefully
for something behind visible perceptions
each vista becomes secret beauty
embracing the viewer into making

If someone ponders honestly, tirelessly
on something beyond logical reflection
each finding becomes useful knowledge
embracing the thinker into balance.

01 APR 2004

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Beyond the Boundary

Published on March 9, 2004

Of all the little things that seem to matter,
and petty squabbles that divide our time
in episodes of silence between chatter
and spaces marking off what’s left behind,

the biggest part of what remains unspoken
is that which each of us holds to as true
and clings to, though now useless, bent and broken:
the line that separates the “me” from “you”.

Beyond what is revealed in quick perusal
or idle conversations we employ
to mask our indecision and refusal
to pause and find together each small joy,

there is a place where we will always meet;
and in that moment, make the world complete.

09 MAR 2004

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Krishnamurti

Published on June 27, 2003

If you would seek the truth, you must be willing
to seek beyond the questions, simple facts,
leave behind stale conceptions, and stand naked,
alone, aware of just this very moment.

Happiness is not based upon others,
it cannot be a shield against the world;
there is a thing that is, it is not other,
and holding it cannot keep it from harm.

We seek some common ground, yet it eludes us
because to seek it there, beyond our selves is vain;
there is no method, guru, or sure teaching,
for truth is found in its own pathless land.

Why suffering, and pain, and disappointment?
Why good and evil, thought of loss or gain?
Because to just exist seems too complacent,
because we like to think we must have plans.

But the universe does not give much attention
to us, in the grand scheme of every day;
We are like flowers, or the breeze, so fragile,
and here, then gone, in but a moment’s play.

The human situation? It reflects us,
each thought that seeks to raise our selves above
the simple, infinite way of creation –
energy released, gathered again.

When the observer and the observation
Cease their illusive separate planes and merge
There is no cause and no effect to ponder;
If you want to find what’s sacred, get out of the way.

27 JUN 2003

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Question On Prophets

Published on June 26, 2003

How does one, not having enlightenment (or grace or whatever you like to call it) recognize that someone else is enlightened? How does someone without the benefit of having seen Nirvana (or the face of God or the underlying principle of the universe whatever you like to call it) know that someone else HAS seen it? How does someone who has never seen Niagara Falls understand the description given by someone who has seen it, has felt the spray of the mist, heard the roar of the tumulting waters?

Is it any wonder that a prophet is never accepted in their home town?

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Finding the Inner Core

Published on February 6, 2003

It is never quite what you expected
(after all, there are no maps or guidebooks)
in that place inside where resurrected
illusions are hiding in each dark nook;

What they taught you regarding self-knowledge
(the meaning of a man, our true nature),
those endless books and long years of college,
convincing you that you were so mature

is often just a load of worthless crap.
When you really do start finding yourself,
what you first see is not easy to take –

it’s not Nirvana that falls in your lap,
but the shattered fragments of something else –
the spent cocoon each caterpillar makes.

06 FEB 2003

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