Tag: dependent relationship

Categories
Buddhism Love Letters Poetry

The Five Aggregates

Form is empty

Like your tongue, your touch, your taste,
the sound of your voice, your scent in space
and in your impermanence, I’ve found
you’ve an addictive quality not soon replaced
appearing muscular, solid – yet not
and, dependent on past patience, quite hot
so when I reach out to grasp, to touch
my mind makes the form I crave so much

Feeling is empty

But dependent upon your appearance
and in dependence upon mine
I have felt this drunken romance
of two dumb hearts entwined
empty of inherent existence
our feelings grew and grew
now in dependence upon your kindness
I feel my heart in you

Discrimination is empty

To tell this from that
seemed rather straightforward
until our limbs were encumbered
with slick sweat and fatigue
and from under, lungs that heaved
and pressed two chests together
so one could not begin nor end
and certainly neither leave
a body that neither of us owns
made two bodies pleased

Compositional Factors are empty

Appropriated aggregates which function
to cause us suffering from our side
for from this contaminated root
grows our self-grasping apprehending I
and then come the branches of delusions
sprouting their poisonous fruit
yet we’re not tempted like Adam and Eve
Enlightenment is our pure pursuit

Consciousness is empty

Still producing samsara
this mind is like a teeter-totter
so we made compassion our motivation 
to take self-cherishing to slaughter
equalizing and exchanging with the other
– how taking and giving make you hotter –
with our self-grasping now destroyed
we are water into water

My name is empty

Never to fall into either extreme
I feel your existence like a dream
so tonight when I lay down my head, and
my hand touches yours in our shared bed
I’ll see one achievement more supreme
than how we transformed one evil deed
now easy to remember we’re mere name
still, my wish for you remaining same.

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Close sometimes counts

I am stable, humble, fine
I am patient, wise, and kind
I’ve spent the past six years
training my wandering, restless mind
so if I want conditions now
no external one I’ll find
it’s only by creating causes
that my samsaric rope unbinds

I’ve found this perfect life
with all the misery and strife
with all the teachers and the wisdom
and the mental faculty to listen
to instructions for escape
a perfect path that cannot wait
for only in this lifetime
am I guaranteed this fate

Now it seems I’m close
closer than e’er I’ve been before
and through contemplating emptiness
I’ll walk through freedom’s door
seeing a non affirming negative
I’ll realize truth once more
and by meditating fearlessly and purely
with Buddha’s blessings I implore

Even though I impute this I
and it these attributes ascribe
and unyielding to it relate
and with so many qualities inflate
false sense of self, let’s call it I
and for its suffering, I would die
soon I’ll gain freedom from this me
so silly to chase its own agony

Since I’ve stabilized my practice
becoming grateful and ever kind
I’ve ceased this ceaseless grasping
and all harm of body, speech and mind
so I can live to serve all beings
so all beings can be free
I’ve developed these good qualities
in dependence upon Three

Categories
Holiday Cheer Poetry

My Tears

My Tears*

I’m crying all the time now.
I cried all over the street when I left Jack’s near Montebello Park.
I cried listening to Heart.
I cried looking at the winter leaves strewn across the yard, I cried at the sadness
            of the now-ignored trees.

Happiness exists I feel it.
I cried for anger, I cried for delusions.
The world is addicted to anger.
Joy appearing to be seen, but lost, a mirage.
                                     Overflowing tears of Avalokiteshvara.

January 1, 2025
*a tribute to Allen Ginsberg’s “Tears,” 1956

Categories
Dreams Poetry

Feels Like Summer (poem)

It’s funny now to think
of all the things that bothered me
of all the pain and suffering
of all the time, temporary
of all the boredom and writing
                     (there was a lot of it)

of all the clouds that passed me by
of all the insults I let fly
of each and every teenage guy
that harassed me – pretty damn good
                    I gotta say

of all the humdrum slow sales days
of all the ones who got away
of all the patrons that did play
of all the couples, straight and gay
                    (had to use the rhyme)

of all the goddamn wasted time
of all the lemons and no lime
all of the coke, the hash, the crime
of getting the nickel not the dime
of all the puke, and dye and slime
of all the nights I spent awake
of all the pictures I did take
of all the muffins I did bake
of all the calmness I did fake
all for the goodness’ sake!

It’s funny now to think
that all that suffering
had its purpose and its place
carried me through this time and space
with a name I tried to lose, but stayed
with an identity that just won’t fade
with a childlike quality that wants to play
believing summer starts in May
wearing bare feet in the stream
ever remembering the dream
       (I’d never lose the Buddhist theme)

for while it helps me to escape
it helps me to survive
it helps me to help others
it helps me to be kind
it helps me be of service
it helps me to be strong
it helps me to be happy
it helps me to get along
it helps me every when
it helps me every where
it helps me every how
it helps to simply care

and certainly, when we met
It was my summer reappeared
all the pain and suffering
all the heartache, all the tears
all the happiness, the joy
all the hope and possibility
all the sunshine and noise
all the soft tranquility
all the disappointment
all the vanity
all the goddamn fears
all the animosity
all the craving and the yearn
all the cash I couldn’t earn
all the parties and the crash
all the littered trash
how did these memories appear
      dependent upon you?
how did all my hopes and dreams
      dissolve in summer’s blue?

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