I have promised patience
in exchange for a kingdom of happiness
I have promised patience
in exchange for an appearance of love
I have promised patience
in exchange for unattached enjoyments
I have promised patience
for you, so we can complete the path together
So I wait, like a princess in her tower
with patience, my Buddha nature I empower
I promised patience, and I wait for you
with faith unwavering, my heart is true.
I lost your number
a long time ago
— right away
after the lock broke
it was clear
I couldn’t be trusted
how things have changed
and mistaken memory
makes you
bigger, then smaller than
you were, are
who are you now?
I wonder
I lost my privilege
to know
the you
grown in moments
now passed
I want to be
someone who loves you
with no demands
with no expectations
with no history of delusion
I want to be
the pure love always within you
yet still,
I cherish only myself
I want you to see me
I want you to love me
because of this
damned self-grasping
And then I laugh remembering
we is just a dream
To my Ex,
Thank you.
You have given me much I will cherish for years to come. Nothing I can keep in a box under my bed. No pictures to burn. Gifts far greater – ones I will carry with me life to life, like my pure love for you.
Patience.
Before I met you, it was rare to walk slowly through nature, and never would I think to name its parts. Waiting was a great torment. Sitting silent was near impossible. Then, you mixed your patient mind with mine.
Faith.
You challenged my beliefs constantly. A torture at the time, but such a gift to progress. This obstacle appeared to destroy our relationship, but served as a test I passed time and again. You helped me try each teaching until I had conviction in each one. I valued them more than temporary relationships. I would keep them at the cost of my life.
Love.
Though we did not know unconditional, we strove. I accepted love from you. And I found my happiness only in giving. For we can never take love for ourself from another. That will never cease suffering. Loving you has helped cease suffering. Loving all beings (even spiders) creates my happiness.
It is only in reflection that I can begin to understand that I was absolutely blessed by the Buddhas that my path be made meaningful and my travel swift. Thank you to Buddha, who appears as friend, family and foe to guide us from our misery.
If we can remember to apply the primary practice.
Thank you.
Love,
your Ex
Dear Karmic Potential,
Are we meeting again?
Have we met before?
Your appearance undoes me
but when I search
I cannot find me at all
nor can I find you
It’s like you’re in a different city
— certainly not here
and yet your closeness lingers
as though you are still near
Suddenly I am all the days
you choose to ignore
and I am the grasping
and I am the craving once more
Still, I cannot but hope you
also feel my presence
maybe yearn for my embrace
begging time be brief ‘tween now
and next you’ll see my face
I pray it be this lifetime
I pray delusion-free
Yet if I have to wait another ten
rounds to serve with you, I will
Love wishes only happiness
so that is all I wish for you
I know it’s all wrong
if ever samsara feels right
but this I am certain of, also,
we can, we will escape
Why not tonight?
Love,
A past and future partner in (escaping) crime
Some things come
Some things go
At least that’s what
We think we know
Yet no thing can rise
And no thing can fall
For there is no out there
Mind is all
To the Musician,
How can I count the ways
I have experienced joy
with you
already
How can I tell thee
the way you make me feel
when I know I have
created the causes
How can I share wisdom
when I am drowning
in samsara’s sea?
Still, you have helped
dispel the ignorance
of a thousand aeons,
a dreadful darkness,
with a single torch
How can I tell you
how happy I feel
how content I am
in the present moment
here and now
with you
while also planning
our escape
Because to
escape suffering
permanently
is my only wish
especially
with you
happy
beside me
Love, the Muse
Not fair!
I said I wouldn’t become
attached to you,
changing condition
yet, so much sorrow
fills minds that grasp
at the losing
a mistaken conception:
yes, it is the summer
that offers me joy
so easy to believe
when winter brings
us pain – in joints,
in frostbitten fingers
in the minds of
jealousy when our friends
flee to now-appreciated
tropical timeshares — now
no more summertime
to share
one dream ends
while we’re trapped
in another
romantic autumn’s
place will come, when
this dull and tiresome
sadness becomes boring
to my fitful, grasping mind
but now, I see only
a broken promise to myself
I wouldn’t become attached
I said
I must have failed
why else would I lay
blame with the season’s change
for my woe
While we can happily enjoy conditions while they are good, there is no logical reason to become attached to any particular condition, because they are always changing.
All conditions, situations, people are temporary. They may last what feels like a long time or they may be brief, changing suddenly, unexpectedly, perhaps lost forever. Because when we manifest the same ‘souls’ or similar appearance in our next life, we have absolutely no recollection that we’ve lived it all before. Loved it all before. Losing it once more. And what lessons have we learned? What imprints are left?
With wisdom we can enjoy each appearance, as it arises, unattached. The end of coming is going. The end of meeting is parting. It happens all the time. All at once.
Why take anything so seriously? Life is but a dream. All we need to do to make it a happy one is create causes. By performing virtue. Sacrifice the self-cherishing, maker of all suffering. Ditch the attachment, rooted in self-grasping ignorance. Renounce samsara and all the pain it’s worth.
Stop harming others. Stop harming your self. Three deep breaths. Relax. Shake your sillies out. Volunteer. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up. Let it be. Love. Become Enlightened. Rejoice endlessly.
What character am I today?
Oft I strive for studious, disciplined
Yet my ego shakes those keeners off
and lets me where a suit
I’m likely to get in trouble for
In grade school I was sent
to the lost & found to find
myself in another’s clothes
after boldly wearing my own
t-shirt listing the names of the
popular kids in the class
under the stamp
Cool Girls Suck
something ran amuck —
I cannot comprehend
my own ten year old mind
that thought her teachers
were arrested in the head
these past life impressions pressed
back out, creating misery this time ‘round
Attachment to the ego,
character Thomas B.
never did bring happiness
so I won’t be attached to thee —
what kind of actor am I today?
Who will I be as I create
causes for ultimate peace
not just for me —
what purpose for that?
If I truly love others,
I’ll escape and come back
The Halfwit Writer