Before having poured
Water in the glass,
Where was the glass of water?
Subject to dependent origination,
As were its constituent parts,
As was the one who poured.
Arising from the causes
And consequences of karma,
Its impermanence
The source of dukkha,
Stemming from attachment.
Neither existing nor not,
Before conditioned arising,
As is the one who poured.
Where is Mahabodhi?
The setting sun
A tree line of pines encroaching shadowy line a sunset divine
Conceptual consciousness
Through contemplative wisdom, consciousness realizes the illusion that is self.
On a story told…
In her secret garden I lay, wishing she would say Of the ancient story, When Israel’s glory Was to Egypt sold. The story she told, of a vibrant luxurious coat, Soaked in the blood of a goat And of a father’s heart broken With naught but a crimson token. On Genesis we reflected And of the covenant rejected, Wondering if we would have made The choice for knowledge forbade, While in the secret garden I laid.
Ode to nature’s forgotten children
These simple lines, When combined, Into complex thoughts, Simple phonemic symbols, Ancient poets wrought, With power to make one tremble. Epics lyrical, Conceptual miracles, Tales of dawn’s hero’s, Arjuna of old, Achilles so bold. Through time, We forgot, The lessons they taught, Reverence of nature, from whom’s bosom we nurtured. When childlike, In virgin-woods we hiked. We explored, And the first-children adored. Before we self-reveled, And great mountains leveled. For what? For naught. For paper gold, Our mother we sold. To the muses I pray, For the eloquence to say, Of the pains I see, That we make be, With the felling of so many a tree. In the glades, Under canopy shade, Is where I would have my relics laid. Forevermore, These earthy remains, In the bosom I adore.
By candle light
Threads of dependent origination braided into wick. One side enlightened, the other ignorant, experienced as flame of enlightenment.
An ardent desire
May all beings I have killed or caused to be killed, either intentionally or unintentionally, attain nibañña. May all beings I have harmed or caused to be harmed, ether intentionally or unintentionally, attain nibañña. May all beings I have insulted or caused to be insulted, either intentionally or unintentionally, attain nibañña. May all beings I have in any way slighted or caused to be slighted, either intentionally or unintentionally attain nibañña. Even over my own attainment.
When slighted
How can one slight you if that one cannot even know you? Who is slighted? How can one know you when you do not even know yourself? For, who is slighted when you realize you cannot be slighted?
”twilight” of dusk to that of dawn
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest therof thou shalt surely die” - Genesis 2:17 (as quoted in “twilight”)
“When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.” From preface to “twilight”
On the preface of twilight Under the Mahabodi Tree, beyond good and evil and all other dualities, In life and death, from which expectations arise sits with closed eyes, the one who realized.