Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Second Disappointment

You search for conventional cause
   but come up empty handed
not quite the emptiness you seek
   because the suffering is still there
the realness of a wound laid bare

and why not rub salt in it —
we’re out of control anyway

a disappointing dream, yes, sore
   red, raw,       sinewy once more
the band aid won’t stick
   and the solitary peace that binds,
too, won’t stick in spite of such mess

Shariputra’s demon will not
   prevent my efforts as a spiritual warrior
even if injured once more

after all, we’re all lunatics in
   the madhouse of samsara
          arrogant prisoner
        trapped
hard to believe it’s not permanent
          until we move beyond
                           conventional cause

you want to be angry,
                           but on what authority?

what justification could you have
                           for such delusion?

Thinking of virtue, compassion and love
             -how do you forget love?
the simple wish for others to be happy

I am so sorry for you that you
        do not know this feeling

a flame carried for all living beings
despite my own suffering
     ‘cause that’s life

and what say you to that?
that in a moment of weakness
                we see it all
and having been forsaken, both,
             and both put through hell
             and failing miserably
to the lower realms we could descend
              if this silly hatred doesn’t end

it’s temporary anyway

do you resist?

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Simple Wisdom

In the Unforgetting World, attachment is inevitable
so my simple wisdom is this:

Attachment will rise
and as a wish fulfilled, it will fall

Your mind creates a story
you must see it all

If you see the tall tale clearly
and Dharma you recall,

Just apply a simple virtue
then, with love, enjoy it all

Categories
Poetry Thirsty Thursday

Exception

even exceptions to the rule

break the paradigm
of their     im perfection

seemingly im possible
at the time

wait for the   but 
the     except

wait for it to fall
as the autumn leaves
still green, clinging,
still receiving the nourishment they need

still strong, then cut – jettisoned
tossed, ripped in the wind
painted glory, faded and
               quickly burnt to crisps

as the feelings
               of new love
blossom and fold

as midnight candy
                      opens at night

honeyed fragrance satisfies space
a gift for senses, too soon to pass
                don’t get attached

and you might be alright —
           except

Categories
Poetry

Addicted to the melodrama

In my heart of hearts
I know

I know
what happiness is

I feel it exists
I know where it is to be found
under the bones, beneath the ribcage,
sub atomic the heart, in the subtle
in the very subtle mind

I know where all is found, created
produced phenomena
mistaken, mistaken
still mistaken
so there’s the rub
the grasp for external things
produced from an internal space
perceived from a point
moving through time and space
but a point, a personality nonetheless
     — non-existent so to speak
yet hard to see       (until it’s not)
   and it’s the rub that’s missed
the feeling, the touch,
the understood cause
of pleasure, pain
the smack, the beating
and don’t get me started on the aural
     — tongue lashings
to teach you tough lessons

What the fuck, right?

do you ever forget that people are real?
do you treat them too much like the dream characters you know they are?
can you feel – or is there a shelf in the way?

will someone please un-install the shelf!?

I think it can be recycled.
donate it. Please, help me.

the ledge is the safest place to be
if it perpetuates such refuge practice

but I don’t want to be there anymore

where do I want to be?

have I done the work, made the effort
that must render the results
effects I’ve created mindfully       (somehow)

and    somehow   I’ll do it again
                   ((blessings))

but oh! how I could do without
the melodramatic feeling!
the melancholy that arises,
                           such ache!
as if I am on the verge of losing
              My Attachment

balancing
the moment, a magic moment
while seeing the potential – certain!
decease, death of these magic moments

no phenomena exists in the same way
for a second moment
care to think about that?

the certainty of change
still surprises you;           cry about it
mourn the wisdom you missed
but receive what’s given to you
       now                   — and why not happily?

you’ve got this
after all, you’ve got the lines —
just practice them
as an actor, rehearse rehearse
perchance to entertain…   to fail…
to fly

imagination is all you need
to reach the end of the path

transform the melodrama
enjoy each step as you walk it

What the fuck, right?

Categories
Firescape Fridays Poetry

I Once Loved Words | FF 21

words of affection used to be
           my “love language”

but time did teach this twisted tongue
        to taste tall tales, talk fiction

soon enough my ears heard
                        such soft, sweet speech
           from my lovers’ lips
    words that would     hit the floor
                         hollow, empty
    without resound

I learned
            through repetition
      that language
beautiful and pure, untainted
                 magical metaphors
              lines with lineage
         when delivered by
                   a malicious mind
         or with careless cheek
            indulge darkness,
                              a deceit

and that is why,
  though I wish to buy them …
          sweet nothings now mean
                           no thing to me

Categories
Firescape Fridays Poetry questions

For Later | FF 20

I have placed upon the shelf
                                   the feeling

                         for later

it’s insecure
                     incorrectly placed
       never found the stud

I don’t know why such a weightless gift
             should appear so heavy

it will likely fall
           not the for the first time glass
           has shattered
                     infinite and
                        finite sharp crystal gems

           allowed to cut again
                  weapons cast upon the floor

because I was afraid,
                I guess

why else

was such a lovely
                              feeling
        shelfed?

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Time Tempts Belief

hard to believe
Time, hardly passed
          and a mark, already here
nearly two years
          and a different mind
has appeared, so many times over

nearly two years ago
you claimed me
unsteady, unstable,
          toxic and cold
now, not two years passed
and I’m too goddamned
          stable and heart-of-gold fast,
too nice for any old soul
          how goddamned depressing
                    for this romantic dolt

time after time, rejected
for incredible conventional reason
understanding it’s karmic creation
                    — nothing personal of course
while feeling deeply personal
a reality of my own making
just the swiftest vehicle
                    my own preference for
navigating Niagara roads

still hard to accept sometimes
          it’s the life I needed, I chose
thank you, my kind Spiritual Guide,
for ripening such conditions —
from which I could never hide
and one day will appreciate
          more than my present self knows

Categories
Buddhism Dreams Poetry

Temporary Illusion-like Appearance

          Open your mind, heart
          to feel what you feel, name it

your Spiritual Guide whispers to you
as a wave that laps the sandy shore, gently
receding, absent whitecaps

          Name what you feel
          be not afraid
          for what rises will fall
          and what fear have we
          of what is not permanent,
          never mind what we cannot name?
          What we cannot name does not exist,
          so what is it?

and you go within,
as instructed for
within is all there is
when there is
no out there out there

and you feel

disappointment
red, raw, and sinewy
funnily, sadly, and sorely
familiar, rubbed, worn and
blistered, in risk of rot
if you let it fester like
resentment –
                    you can’t
I was here first          your way
in or out of this one

it’s not yours, except
you lay claim to its
disappointment
as though it could have been
if it could have it would have
and it didn’t so it won’t

and you think

acceptance
the sweetest fruit,
sometimes the heaviest to bear
laid at your feet as you risk despair
only having to pick it up, lift it
with legs of wisdom,
but no –
                    I chose
to disappoint       myself

yet, hope

hope is here too
blossoming as a new bud
for disappointment
could not create sorrow
where love and compassion
had already taken root –
my mind protected by a gate of
incredible goodness, the only pleasure
I’ll happily increase in samsara’s garden
where running never yields escape
for the iron fence is the nature
of the mind – presently misunderstood

so hope,

hope that yields to faith
is what transforms my dream
because I must believe that
change is possible, is real
to make progress, effort, heal
I trust my Spiritual Guide’s instructions
for I put them to the test
and when hope transformed to purest
Faith, I see they are the best
and still my foolish mind cannot
afford to rest

because I was the mind of
unnecessary disappointment today
the utmost waste of breath
when each and every thing that’s ripened
has been for my swift path’s benefit
          so this too I will transform
and birth love so great it shall
become the norm, even if time be brief
we have so little to work with,
yet there’s so much we can achieve
if we hold correct belief

so, still I see the disappointment
my mind claims as mine – though truly
I could do without, here, add to that list
my deluded doubt
                    I know my happiness doesn’t lie here,
and still I mourn a temporary loss –
                    so instead, I donate
these mistaken minds to the cause,
the cause of the effect, the only one
I wish to possess, the greatest mind
of precious Enlightenment

(for others’ benefit, may I forever cease
these horrible, painful minds of suffering)

Categories
Buddhism Poetry

Somewhere an Indestructible Heart

Often I find myself liking something
or labeling an experience as pleasant
for the enjoyment of making a kind
connection with another, a friend

We yearn for that connection
with another soul out there, out there
separate and halved like an apple, pear
fruit plucked unripe from the tree
while a love fell too soon
from her own broken branch —
will they rot together in the after?
They will rot in this life nonetheless

We strive for connection
by rearranging external circumstances
just so, so we can reach out
touch another, their heart, their skin
we yearn to touch another’s
separate skin, slick and spoiled, soft
so soft and external as smells and sounds
of summertime’s sadness, smooth as
Regina Spektor’s Russian indie blues

We say to our lonely, ignorant selves
it just couldn’t be my vast mind,
ocean-like and empty,
as all phenomena which appear
from this root mind, mixed with
all sentient beings, and Buddhas

Knowing this! while knowing this
and believing this, part-heartedly,
I gather the search party — a fellowship
on a journey to happiness — ever-forgetting
the story of the ring was this:

Goodness is in all men, all beings.

The ring — rather, the desire for the ring corrupted the hearts of men, and the hearts of other beings. In an attempt to attain this dark power, unthinkable negative actions were committed in unimaginable numbers which led to the destruction of peaceful existence, threatening to pitch everyone into the hellish suffering of Mordor’s merciless rule.

The protagonist’s goals never encompassed creating goodness — that already exists within all men. The goal was rather to overcome evil, to strive to be virtuous and honorable, to protect good at all costs. Because it is the right thing to do and yields the best results for other beings, beings we love.

The goal is to sacrifice the individual self that cannot attain happiness alone (and that will eventually steal happiness from others). The goal is to simply destroy the evil within.

When evil is destroyed, all that is left is good.

Knowing this! while knowing this
and believing this whole-heartedly
I change my external actions so
I cease grasping at the imagination
of my dreamlike reality and instead
create the internal causes to
evolve my mind completely,
to experience the truth directly
and to help all living beings in turn
completely inseparable from me
at my invincible heart

Categories
Dreams Poetry

The Illusion

I saw a puppy dog in your eyes
I consulted with the night
“Is this a disguise?”
I waited and waited but heard no reply.

I heard an old soul in your voice
I questioned my spirit guides
“Have I before made this choice?”
They laughed and whispered, “Silly pride.”

I retrieved a fiery star
from a faraway realm
“I felt something stir,
and he felt like home.”

“O foolish girl,
we’ve told you before;
you’ll know when you feel it,
you know you need more.”

I combed with my eyes,
searched above and below,
searched within faces,
searched for what I know.

Unexpected, unexpected,
was the whisper from the moon.
Unexpected, unexpected —
but was that going to be soon?

There’s a craving and a longing,
like I’ve come unmoored.
There’s an anxious buzzing dancing,
and I’m yearning to be cured.

Seeking through external,
same mistake as before.
I know it when I feel it,
I know going in means more.

I released the burning star
“What does unexpected mean?”
“You’re missing the point,
stop playing ordinary being.”

I imagined I saw pain in your eyes.
I confessed to the night
“He reflects my disguise.”
“Your wisdom grows,” the dark replied.

I felt a soft soul on your skin,
but the imprints came from mind.
I recognized my old soul from within,
and promised, “This time I’ll be kind.”

The pain I’ve caused in countless lives,
has come against me stacked
with loneliness as a simple karmic scale
bringing balance when with patience I react. 

I accept and cultivate pure love
as an antidote to suffering – both mine
and yours – and with gratitude to guides above
heart embrace, entwine and with universe align.

Virtue and emptiness and wisdom and union
through my intention, ultimate and supreme
with universal compassion, the ultimate communion
and above all else, I will remember the dream.