Beautiful Soul

 image by ravencrow.org

"Ha ha ha - I'm just a simple Buddhist monk" he says with smiles and chuckles. Such a beloved one!

"At daybreak if the weather is fine, I go into the garden. This time of day is very special to me. The sky is clear, I see the stars, and I have this special feeling - of my insignificance in the cosmos, the realization of what we Buddhists call impermanence."

image from bookhaven.stanford.edu

"My religion is kindness," he says. Note the shoes under his chair, how he sits with his legs tucked up. When I saw him at the Peace Summit in Vancouver, he had a sun visor on and when people spoke at great length, or too loftily, he'd tilt his head down and appear to rest or meditate. But when someone said something especially well, he lit up.

image by T.C.Palm

"From the very core of our being we desire contentment. For harmony each individual's identity must be fully respected."

"In .... time I'll be eighty-three, just an old man with a stick moving like a sloth bear. While I'm alive, I'm fully committed to autonomy, and I am the person who can persuade the Tibetan people to accept it."

 image by achievementgap.wordpress.com

                 "If you are showing love to your fellow human beings, you are showing love to your God.

Irrespective of whether you are a believer or non-believer, whether Buddhist, Christian or Jew, the important thing is to be a good human being."

Great One, with your rainbow heart, you show us how to respect every other human.

     image from ravencrow.org

"For me it is nothing - [whether it is a] new millenium or new century or new year. For me it is another day, another night. The sun, the moon, the stars remain the same." 

from the Vancouver Peace Summit booklet

"All human beings come from a mother's womb. We are all the same part of one human family. We should have a clear realization of the oneness of all humanity.

"Around the world millions of people remain silent, but the majority want peace, not bloodshed.

I want to say without hesitation that the purpose of our life is happiness.

The more we care for the happiness of others,

the greater our own sense of well-being becomes.

"We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet."

Wise soul,

beautiful mind,

warm heart,

when you

show us your smile,

we understand

better

how to

love.

I highly recommend to anyone interested, the dvd What Remains Of Us, a Canadian documentary exploring the survival of the nonviolent resistance movement inside Tibet. The film follows the journey of a young girl of Chinese background, who travels inside Tibet, secretly carrying a filmed message from the Dalai Lama to his followers inside Tibet. Going into their houses, this girl secretly showed the Dalai Lama's message to his people, a household at a time. The looks on the faces of the people, especially the most elderly, as they saw his face and heard his words, is heart-wrenching. 103 Tibetans bravely speak out on the film about human rights. To protect them, the National Film Board observes strict security surrounding screenings. According to internet sources, so far none of the 103 have been arrested.

Wise Heart

image from soundstrue.com

[A writing prompt at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads asks us to take a poem and write a matching poem, replacing each word with a synonym or word that sounds or is spelled similarly. I am posting it on this same page, to make it easier for those commenting. Feel free to skip the prose introduction. I know time is in short supply:)]

Yesterday my copy of the Shambala Sun arrived, so last night, in bed before I fell asleep, I eagerly browsed through its pages. I am not a Buddhist, I am not really anything, but there is a lot that I love and admire in Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama is one of my favorite human beings. (I saw him, in Vancouver, a year ago at the Peace Summit. Being in the same building with him, seeing him walk out onto the stage, was one of the highlights of my life, a gift I gave my soul, which needed it badly at the time.)

Perhaps I believe in everything, in spirituality rather than any one religion. There is truth in every religion, but the discords and differences that create such distress in the world, when what we need to focus on is our samenesses - our humanity - bother me, as does any one belief system that says "this is the only way." There are as many paths as can be dreamed or imagined, and each of us makes our own way along the one that feels most true, hopefully remaining respectful of others' rights to do the same.

I was happy to see Jack Kornfield's face on the cover of the magazine. The article inside features his  new book, The Wise Heart. I've been reading Jack's books for years. He has made an amazing journey. When Viet Nam was raging, he volunteered for the Peace Corps, asking to be shipped to a Buddhist country. Sent to Thailand, he made his way to a remote and impoverished region of the jungle near the Laotian border, where he heard about an American monk living in the ruins of a temple. Finding  the young American named Sudhao, he also found his teacher, Ajahn Chah, and began to study. Later,  he took a year-long retreat with a Burmese master named Mahasi Sayadaw, who offered a method for attaining states of meditative absorption, called Jhanas.

Meditating for eighteen hours a day, Jack broke through to subtle realms of awareness that he describes as "the particle physics of consciousness".

"My mind became so still," Jack said. "I could see thoughts not only when they arose, but before they arose, like that feeling when you're about to burp. My body would dissolve into twenty kinds of light - light like the full moon, light like your body dispersing into fireflies.

"Then I went through stages where there were ten thousand grains of sensation in every instant of consciousness, where the smallest movement of your arm was like the shifting of a sand dune - all those little particles arising and passing out of emptyness." Through this process, Jack attained what the elders call "high equanimity".

When Jack returned to America in 1972, he tried to maintain the life of a Thai monk. But doing alms rounds in the city in his robes and refusing to handle money made life difficult. At last, with sadness, he found a temple to conduct his disrobing ceremony in. He wept as he divested himself of his robes. "I was leaving behind a simplicity, a commitment to dharma with every fibre of my being, that was truly beautiful. It was the right thing to do, but it was a loss."

Kornfield, along with several  others, eventually opened a dharma center in Massachussetts and, ten years later, built Spirit Rock, a residential retreat center, in the San Geronimo Valley on the West Coast.

Anyway, (long prologue), I went to sleep with these words swirling in my brain, and dreamed I lost my purse, with some cash saved for my dog's operation and  my credit card and identification. (Perhaps a message to me to let go of all the financial worry my dog's operation has brought.)  I looked for my purse all night long,  waking up grateful it was only a dream, and with these words in my head: 

The wise heart
knows
to be
grateful for
every
single
little thing:
eyes that open
in the morning
and still see,
legs that go
over the side
of the bed
and still walk,
a cup of tea,
sunrise,
all the familiar
little moments
of the day,
sunset,
a warm bed........

So many things
are gifts
to the
wise heart.

Blessings on your day!

The synonym poem was an interesting exercise,
but I prefer the original.

A discerning sage
understands
being
thankful for
each
solitary
small occurrence:
eyesight on waking
at dawn,
limbs
that still
hold us up,
one's mug of Earl Gray,
daybreak,
the accustomed
small pleasures
of dailiness......
nightfall,
a comfortable nest,
myriad
small pleasures
of the
discerning sage.

Thanks for reading:)

The Geography of Hearts

image from wonderofcreation.org

He sits,
peaceful, unhurried,
humble, wise,
arranging his medicine
on the prayer cloth.

Carefully,
he places them:
the rock, the antler,
the abalone shell,
the sage,
the eagle wing,
the tobacco,
and the pipe.

We sit in a circle,
silent,
waiting.
I feel the stillness
deep within.
Thoughts are
suspended.
Waiting is
what is
happening.

Then, around the circle
he walks,
holding the abalone shell,
using the eagle wing
-the entire wing of an eagle -
to blow the sage-smoke
over us.

Each in turn,
bathes in the smoke,
lifting it
to our faces,
over our heads,
down our arms and legs,
over our shoulders.

The medicine man
returns to his
prayer cloth.
He sits.
Slowly, he fits
the pipe together,
tamps the tobacco
down,
lights the pipe
and draws.
He points
the stem of the pipe
and breathes
a stream of smoke
Above
towards the sun,
Below
towards the earth,
in each of
The Four Directions.

The pipe passes.
One by one,
we breathe in
the sacred smoke
and pass it on.

When it has passed
full circle
he dismantles it,
puts his medicine away:
the rock, the antler,
the abalone shell, the sage,
the eagle wing,
the tobacco,
and the pipe.

Then he brings out
the drum.
Its beat
reverberates
through my
innermost being
and I am
spiritually filled.

I know in one
of my many lifetimes,
I have been First Nations.
My soul is First Nations now -
it is many nations,
for in all my lifetimes
I have been
many people,
and in this lifetime
I understand
that geography
of hearts.

I am connected
forever
to that day
to that circle
to that sacred place
and to the larger circle
of humankind
that we all are.

The medicine man
is singing,
each word a prayer
and a blessing
with which
our hearts
are filled.

When he brings out
the feather,
he tells us:
"Your greatest pain
is your strongest
medicine."

He looks straight
into my eyes.
He knows.
I understand.

His words are
medicine,
and his life
a gift to others.

On this day,
I dreamed
the Rainbow Race
is rising
all over the earth.
May the Human Race
arise and claim
the thousand years
of peace
we are
awaiting.

The Wisdom Teeth of the Planet

["If the current rate of deforestation continues,

80 to 90 % of the planet's rainforest will be gone

by 2020". Source: Rainforest Action Network]

I took the back way

into town today.

I love the winding road,
lined with forests,

no traffic,

passing by horses

and llamas

and the occasional cow.

Sometimes a mama deer

slips out between the trees

with her babies,

and they tentatively

poke alongside the road,

munching sweetgrass.

This morning,

delightfully,

I watched

a yearling bear

lolloping alongside

the roadway.

He looked askance at me,

trying to determine

exactly what

kind of animal

this noisy metal

blue thing was.

Then I rounded

a corner,

and there were

flag people

and trucks

and heavy lifters.

They were

clearing trees

from a substantial

stretch of land

along the roadway

and all the way back,

eliminating trails

horses, riders,

dogs and people

have enjoyed for

fifty years.

Trees were down,

their roots

sticking up,

bleeding

clumps of earth.

It looked as if

they came out

painfully,

relinquished

their hold

unwillingly,

had tried to

hold on.

It looked

as if

the yellow machines

were pulling

the wisdom teeth

of the planet,

along with

all its wisdom.

The status quo

is relentless.

Knock 'em down

rip 'em out

quick

while we

still can!

I had to pull over

to breathe

just breathe

before I could

go on.

Do they think

oxygen

will still

be here

when all the

trees

are gone?

PAIN

[This was written in response to Poet United's Thursday Think Tank Prompt # 11 : Pain. This is the list that comes to mind but I am sure it would be longer if I took more time. It was getting too depressing:)]
Tofino Creek in Clayoquot Sound. Photo from blog.livebooks.com
What pains me?
The sight of logging trucks
heading out of town
with the last of our forests,
transporting jobs to
Somewhere Else,
leaving hillsides of waste
behind,
like corpses strewn
on the field of battle.
What pains me?
Dolphins being massacred
in the bays of Japan,
frantically trying to escape
with their babies
in a sea of blood.
Whales, dead on the beach
from ocean toxins.
Ocean plankton,
half our world's oxygen source,
reduced by 40%
since 1950.
Because of humans.
Because of us!
Oil spills, global warming,
multinationals raping the planet
for profit,
and destroying our grandchildrens'
childrens' tomorrows.
Hungry and displaced
wild creatures
of all kinds.
Mistreated and abused
animals and children.
The mentally ill, the homeless,
the suffering hordes
of refugees
moving across desert landscapes.
Pakistan, struggling in a sea of mud.
Flood victims in Pakistan - CBC photo

Warfare and all manner
of fractious inharmoniousness,
over differing ideologies,
which makes as much sense as
killing each other
because we prefer
different types of jam.

What pains me?
Not being able to do much
but write poems about
all of the above.

What pains me?
Growing old and
having taken
far too long
to grow wise.

What hurts?
Being wise.