Tag: purification

Categories
Poetry

Get on with it

(alternative title: How to not do you)

I’ve a laundry list of things to do
not one of them involving you
so, if you please, I’ll be
              getting on with my day

While I’d love to sit and stay
and chat until we’re old and gray
I know it just won’t be enough
              so I’ll get on without it

Under red oak and blue sky I sit
to meditate and improve my wit
still I know it won’t be enough
              so I get on with it

I guess I’ve gotten a bit more fit
and especially if by salt-lamp lit
I think I might be good enough
              but I must errands run

Now a silly story my mind has spun
transforming chores from bore to fun
I purify my karma now
              so I can move on too

And though there is so much to do
I just can’t stop thinking on you
so how am I supposed to act?
              I get on with it

Categories
Poetry

Halloween Haunt

I don’t feel right
I can’t be normal
an alien in another’s skin —
how uncomfortable at times
I see myself needing
I see myself performing
I watch the satisfaction of each urge
depressed (only) momentarily, popped
deflated pimple, red, temporary
embarrassing, addictive
craving will resurface, a monster
people argue its existence — Loch Ness —
but the lie lays bare before us
recognized or not

so, it is with robotic sensibilities
I feel myself refuse to yield
to another pointless pleasure
and instead feel pain!
which I know is not the way —
but how else will I recognize
when I am being led astray
if not by monitoring such deceits
especially harmful, discovering

my own mind is the evil
that haunts me

Categories
Poetry

Part of it all

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I want to be
part of it all
not individual and alone
not an add-on, but integral
I want my purity to be yours
and I want to spark the virtue
in all minds, together
like water, taking shape

I want to see
the aggregate of aggregates
“I” am
I want to see the “I” differently
so I am not trickster-trapped
by selfish self-cherishing
grasping the most important “me”

I want to be
the cedar on the rock,
the bark on the trunk,
a drop of water in the earth
a molecule of worth
immeasurable yet meaningful
a part of it all

Categories
Poetry

significant irrelevance

the suffering of mediocrity
   may force descent
into obscurity
        creating happiness
in lack      a simplicity
   now tempting
soothing
   a balm for chaos
out of reach
        while chasing fame’s
   firefly light    —    too brief

but that’s all he had
    no eyes on me
and false transcendence
    on his teeth
a crooked smile
    that sucked you in,
        that devilish grin
and the way with words
   and pen

maddening
        my own seeds
of frustration
     anger
               ripening

never free
   until the causes
        are purified:    undo
unhappiness-to-be

enter —
         the space and freedom
of mediocrity

Categories
Buddhism Philosophy Poetry

The Deserter’s Confession

To desert – to leave someone, especially lacking 

Desert – a dry place barren or lacking of water, and therefore life, typically characterized by sand or rocky substrate  

Have I deserted others? I have been repenting for abandonment – all while running from those in need, in this very life.

I have grown attached to comfortable conditions and yet things are changing. Although I know the years bear varied fruits, I still expect a consistency inconsistent with samsara, and now I am frustrated and my wishes are unfulfilled!

What can I possibly do to bear the burdens and great sufferings of this life but go for refuge to the Three Jewels – the only glimmer of gold available to protect my mind until I reach full Enlightenment. I will always be vulnerable to the illusion-like elements, believing them to be inherently existent and external to my mind! Ha! A joke and a lie grasped at by a self-cherishing, ignorant mind. 

Please, Buddha! Ripen a Dharma Jewel in my mind that I may no longer abide in such senseless suffering knowing that I create causes, I purify negativity, I grow merit in abundance, especially by remaining ever mindful and alert to the delusions that arise continuously in my mind, nonstop, as I breathe. To fight against this endless deluge, a magnificent current, is only possible through blessings (a miracle indeed)!

Praise to Buddha, the neverending source of happiness guiding all my steps, so that I may always keep a happy mind and so I might attain Enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings! How wonderful I have this precious opportunity. I will not take it for granted and I will not waste time wishing things would be easier or faster. What benefit is that to me when my primary goal is to end samsara permanently? I will be patient. I will wait quietly. I will not seek revenge. I will take responsibility for my negative karma. I will act as a Bodhisattva, now, in the present, even as I’m becoming one. I will bring the future result into the present which is simply happiness – for whatever arises is bliss and emptiness and we’ll wake up laughing, seeing it was here all along. 

And after all, how far off can we really be?

All we have to do is give up grasping at this dream. 

I will desert the dream. 

I renounce samsara.

But I will not abandon living beings. I will come back to help all others. For my goal is not, nor ever, solitary peace.

No matter how much I think I may enjoy the quiet.

I will not live in the desert.

Categories
Poetry Saturday Expressions

The world tears open | Session 9

Today, the world is tearing open

Everyone I know is crying
women, men
this is what our anger becomes
when our fire runs out and
we realize what we’ve done

This is how we bare our souls
with honest feeling
in safety
why should we alone endure our gief?

In the fray, the pages rend –
this time not my hand to blame –
yet the rip reveals remembrance
that recollection cannot heal

Bearing loss, the heartache felt
heavy as a pack
carried uphill over many days
heavier now,
as if weight was added still

Sorrow, the melancholy blues
I haven’t felt you in a while
and here you are anew

We may wallow in anguish, woe —
briefly — as we fall into
the cracks
as night chases the sun away
we can wish for tomorrow’s gift:
a day that destroys our dismay

permanently.