From my perch,spanning the vast,
fathomless sky at night,
where 100 billion galaxies
vie with one another, for foothold,
shoals of fish on the swim
in diverse forms of being
( or nothingness of various kind)
in cycles  of birth from dust,
growth, death in dark holes and rebirth.

I now see only  a lone star above,
cowering at a far corner, in silence
anxiety ridden  as she's alone
in this celestial grand opera house.

Wonder, where had gone all,
the spectacular display of star power,
profligacy of fish of  ocean above
proudly displaying just yesterday.

Lessons, on equanimity perhaps,
nature teaches,writing on the night sky.

1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the
earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always ***,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every ***** and attribute of me, and of any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is
ahead?

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old
and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is *****, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my *****-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and
poke-****.

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the ******* of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and
am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

8
The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the ****** floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-*****,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain’d by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.

9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-****’d game,
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d
feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.

11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they ***** with spray.

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

13
The ***** holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The ***** that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat
away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of
his polish’d and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what
is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.

I believe in those wing’d purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown i

A Thread of Equanimity.
[Note:ref. holy Qur’an(1:4)m holy Bible,John,(4:23-24) and Mundakopanizhad(1:6)]                                  

Ramzan reminds us of holy Qur’an
That tells us  to read ; observe, think.
Serve, the needy with sakat , sadaka
Pray only Him ; for He  only forgives.
“Iyaka  na abudu wa  iyaka nasthaieen”
[Only Thou we worship; rely Thou ]-
“Yesha Sarveswara Yesha Sarvagna
Yesho  antharyamyesha yooni : sarvasya
Prabhavapyau hi  bhoothanam”
[Protector of all, the All-knowing is He
He is The Force ,  the Seat is He ;
Form Him Emerge all; to  Him all go  back]
“Twamekam Sarenyam, twamekam varenyam
Twamekamekam jagat karanam”
“Only ,Thou art reliable, noble Thou art
Thou art the only Cause of creations.]
The righteous worship Him in Spirit and-
In Truth ; “God is spirit” ; so says,  Jesus.
To every race has sent God Prophets
They only taught to follow the Right Path.
Call it Dharma or Deen you may; call it,
Follow the same path ,:refrain from vices.
Love is the thread of  equanimity,
Spun up- by  mystic conscience super.

Form is emptiness
Emptiness is form

1. Sunyata (Emptiness) is the profound meaning of the Mahayana Teaching.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha was able to realise "emptiness" (s. sunyata). By doing so he freed himself from unsatisfactoriness (s. dukkha). From the standpoint of enlightenment, sunyata is the reality of all worldly existences (s. dharma). It is the realisation of Bodhi — Prajna. From the standpoint of liberation, sunyata is the skilful means that disentangle oneself from defilement and unsatisfactoriness. The realisation of sunyata leads one to no attachment and clinging. It is the skilful means towards enlightenment and also the fruit of enlightenment.

There are two ways for us to understand this concept of sunyata in the Mahayana context. One way is to try to understand the explanation about its true nature. The other way is the realisation through practice. What we are going to discuss now is about its true nature.

Mahayana teachings have always considered that the understanding of sunyata is an attainment which is extremely difficult and extraordinarily profound.

For example, in the Prajna Sutra it says "That which is profound, has sunyata and non-attachment as its significance. No form nor deeds, no rising nor falling, are its implications."

Again in the Dvadasanikaya Sastra (composed by Nagarjuna, translated to Chinese by Kumarajiva A.D. 408) it says: "The greatest wisdom is the so-called sunyata."

This sunyata, no creation, calmness and extinction (s. nirvana) is of a profound significance in the Mahayana teachings. Why do we see it as the most profound teaching? This is because there is no worldly knowledge, be it general studies, science or philosophy, that can lead to the attainment of the state of sunyata. The only path to its realisation is via the supreme wisdom of an impassionate and discriminating mind. It is beyond the common worldly understanding.

2. The Significance of Sunyata and Cessation

The Buddha always used the terms void, no rising and falling, calmness and extinction to explain the profound meaning of sunyata and cessation. The teachings of the Buddha that were described in words are generally common to worldly understandings. If one interprets the teachings superficially from the words and languages used, one will only gain worldly knowledge and not the deeper implication of the teachings. The teachings of the Buddha have their supra-mundane contexts that are beyond the worldly knowledge.

For example, sunyata and the state of nirvana where there is no rising nor falling, are interpreted by most people as a state of non-existence and gloom. They fail to realise that quite the opposite, sunyata is of substantial and positive significance.

The sutras often use the word "great void" to explain the significance of sunyata. In general, we understand the "great void" as something that contains absolutely nothing. However, from a Buddhist perspective, the nature of the "great void" implies something which does not obstruct other things, in which all matters perform their own functions. Materials are form, which by their nature, imply obstruction. The special characteristic of the "great void" is non-obstruction. The "great void" therefore, does not serve as an obstacle to them. Since the "great void" exhibits no obstructive tendencies, it serves as the foundation for matter to function. In other words, if there was no "great void" nor characteristic of non-obstruction, it would be impossible for the material world to exist and function.

The "great void" is not separated from the material world. The latter depends on the former. We can state that the profound significance of sunyata and the nature of sunyata in Buddhism highlights the "great void’s" non-obstructive nature.

Sunyata does not imply the "great void". Instead, it is the foundation of all phenomena (form and mind). It is the true nature of all phenomena, and it is the basic principle of all existence. In other words, if the universe’s existence was not empty nor impermanent, then all resulting phenomena could not have arisen due to the co-existence of various causes and there would be no rising nor falling. The nature of sunyata is of positive significance!

Calmness and extinction are the opposite of rising and falling. They are another way to express that there is no rising and falling. Rising and falling are the common characteristics of worldly existence. All phenomena are always in the cycle of rising and falling. However, most people concentrate on living (rising). They think that the universe and life are the reality of a continuous existence.

Buddhism on the other hand, promotes the value of a continuous cessation (falling). This cessation does not imply that it ceases to exist altogether. Instead, it is just a state in the continuous process of phenomena. In this material world, or what we may call this "state of existence", everything eventually ceases to exist. Cessation is definitely the home of all existences. Since cessation is the calm state of existence and the eventual refuge of all phenomena, it is also the foundation for all activities and functions.

The Amitabha Buddha who was, and is, revered and praised by Buddhists around the world, radiates indefinite light and life from this "state of cessation". This state is a continuous process of calmness. It will be the eventual refuge for us all. If we think carefully about the definitions of calmness and extinction, then we can deduce that they are the true natural end-points of rising and falling. The true nature of the cycle of rising and falling is calmness and extinction. Because of this nature, all chaos and conflicts in the state of rising and falling will eventually cease. This is attainable by the realisation of prajna.

3. Contemplating the Implications of Sunyata and Stillness (Nirvana) by Observing Worldly Phenomena

All existences exhibit void-nature and nirvana-nature. These natures are the reality of all existence. To realise the truth, we have to contemplate and observe our worldly existence. We cannot realise the former without observing the latter. Consider this Heart Sutra extract, "Only when Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva practised the deep course of wisdom of Prajna Paramita did he come to realise that the five skandhas (aggregates, and material and mental objects) were void."

Profound wisdom leads us to the realisation that all existences are of void-nature. The sutras demonstrate that the profound principle can be understood by contemplating and observing the five skandhas. We cannot realise the truth by seeking something beyond the material and mental world. The Buddha, using his perfect wisdom, observed worldly existence from various implications and aspects, and came to understand all existences.

In summary, there are three paths to this observation:

a) We should observe the preceding state and the current state of conditions. i.e., Observation according to the concept of time.

b) We should observe existences according to their interrelationships. i.e., Observation via the concept of space (either two or three-dimensions).

c) We should observe the true nature of all myriad beings. This is like observing the worldly existences of a point, a line and an area. Those with supreme wisdom understand the true nature of all worldly existences by observing vertically the relationships between the preceding and current conditions, and horizontally the interrelationships. Then we can understand the true meaning of void-nature and nirvana-nature.

3.1 By observing the preceding-stage and the current-stage conditions, we can verify the Law of Impermanence of all worldly existences. All existences, be they material or mental, be they the material world, or the physical or mental states of sentient beings, are subject to continuous change.

The world may have certain states of beings where they stay static or are in equilibrium on a temporary basis (for example hibernation). But when we observe them with supreme wisdom, we will find that not only do they keep changing on a yearly basis, but also that this change applies to even every briefest moment. After the current state of conditions have ceased to exist, the newly-formed state materialises. This is the state of rising and falling. The rising and falling of each small moment reveals that all existences are ever-moving and ever-changing.

Conventional scholars have a very good explanation of these ever-changing worldly conditions. However they, including the practitioners of dharma, try to make sense of the reality from the ever-changing worldly existences. That is, they are fooled by the material existences and are not able to understand the deeper truth of all existences.

Only those with the supreme wisdom of the Buddha and Mahabodhisattvas realise and understand that all existences are illusions. They understand that existences are not real from the observation of the flow of changing existences. The numerous illusionary existences may well be diverse and confusing, arising and decaying. But when we look into their true nature, we will find them void and of nirvana-nature.

On the other hand, since all existences are of nirvana-nature, they appear from the perspective of time, to be ever-changing. They never stay the same even for the briefest moment. Impermanence implies existences do not have a permanent entity. This is another implication of the nature of sunyata and stillness.

3.2 From observations of existence via inter-relationships, we can conclude that nothing is independent of the Law of Causation, and that everything is without ego. For example, the Buddha explains that the individual sentient being is composed of physical, physiological and psychological phenomena. The so called ego is a deluded illusion which does not exist in reality. Its existence depends on the combination of both physical and mental factors. It is a union of organic phenomena. Thus we call it the empirical ego. It is a mistake to cling to it as an infatuated ego.

The Indian concept of the supreme spirit implies someone who rules. The spirit is the ruler who is independent of is self-dependent and all causes. In other words, the spirit is the one who is free from all primary and secondary causes (for physical and mental aspects). The spirit is the one who has the soul of his own body and mind. This is the ego or supreme spirit that the theologists cling to. From their view point, the only way to avoid physical and mental decay is to be self-determined and self-sovereign. In this way, the supreme being can stay permanent in the cycle of reincarnation, and return to the absolute reality by liberating himself from life and death.

But from the profound contemplation and wisdom of the Buddha and Mahabodhisattvas, we know there is no such reality. Instead, egolessness (non-self) is the only path to understand the reality of the deluded life. All existences are subject to the Law of Causes and Conditions. These include the smallest particles, the relationship between the particles, the planets, and the relationship between them, up to and including the whole universe! From the smallest particles to the biggest matter, there exists no absolute independent identity.

Egolessness (non-self) implies the void characteristics of all existence. Egolessness (non-self) signifies the non-existence of permanent identity for self and existence (Dharma). Sunyata stresses the voidness characteristic of self and existence (Dharma). Sunyata and egolessness possess similar attributes. As we have discussed before, we can observe the profound significance of sunyata from the perspective of inter-dependent relationships. Considering dharma-nature and the condition of nirvana, all existences are immaterial and of a void-nature. Then we see each existence as independent of each other. But then we cannot find any material that does exist independent of everything else. So egolessness also implies void-nature!

3.3 From the observation of all existences, we can infer the theory of nirvana and the complete cessation of all phenomena. From the viewpoint of phenomena, all existences are so different from each other, that they may contradict each other. They are so chaotic. In reality, their existence is illusionary and arises from conditional causation. They seem to exist on one hand, and yet do not exist on the other. They seem to be united, but yet they are so different to one another. They seem to exist and yet they do cease! Ultimately everything will return to harmony and complete calmness. This is the nature of all existence. It is the final resting place for all. If we can understand this reality and remove our illusions, we can find this state of harmony and complete calmness.

All our contradictions, impediments and confusion will be converted to equanimity. Free from illusion, complete calmness will be the result of attaining nirvana. The Buddha emphasised the significance of this attainment and encouraged the direct and profound contemplation on void-nature. He said, "Since there is no absolute self-nature thus every existence exhibits void-nature. Because it is void, there is no rising nor falling. Since there is no rising nor falling, thus everything was originally in complete calmness. Its self-nature is nirvana."

From the viewpoint of time and space, we can surmise that all existences are impermanent, all existences have no permanent self, and nirvana is the result of the cessation of all existences - the Three Universal Characteristics. But there are not three different truths. Instead, they are the characteristics of the only absolute truth and the ultimate reality. This is the explanation of Dharma-nature and the condition of nirvana. The three characteristics are the one characteristic, and vice versa!

We may cultivate our meditation, contemplating the impersonality of all existences. This will lead us to enlightenment via the path of voidness. Contemplating nirvana and complete calmness leads to enlightenment by the path of immaterial form. Contemplating the impermanence of all existences, leads us to enlightenment by the path of inactivity (no desire).

The Three Universal Characteristics are the other implications of Dharma-nature and nirvana. The paths to enlightenment are also the same cause of absolute reality. All of them return to the Dharma-nature and the condition of nirvana. In short, the teachings of the Buddha start from the observation and contemplation of all worldly phenomena. They are like thousands of streams of water competing with each other, and flowing from the top of the mountains to the bottom. Eventually, all of them return to the ocean of voidness and nirvana.

4. Sunyata and Cessation is the Truth (Nature) of All Existences.

All existences that are recognised by worldly understanding, whether materially, spiritually or intellectually, have always been misunderstood by us. We cling to them as real, physically existing and permanent. Actually, they are only unreal names.

The more precise meaning of the term "unreal name" is "assumption" or "hypothesis". It is an empirical name. It is formed by the combination of various causes and effects. (These include the effects of mental consciousness.) It does not exist by itself. Everything exists relatively. Thus, what is the ultimate truth? If we investigate existence further, we realise that all existences are empty. This is the fundamental characteristic and reality of all existence. It is ultimate and absolute. But we should not think that empty means nothing. It implies the disentanglement from the worldly misunderstanding of the existence of self, identity, and the realisation of the absolute.

In the Sutras and Abhidharma, the worldly understandings are sometimes referred to as all phenomena (Dharma). Sunyata is referred to as "Dharma-nature", and hence there is a distinction between "phenomena" and "Dhamma-nature". However, this is only an expedient explanation that helps us to realise the truth of sunyata through the phenomena of all existences.

We should not think that "existence" and "nature"; or the "phenomena of Dharma" and "Dharma-nature" are something contradictory. They are just concepts needed to understand the implication of sunyata.

We may analyse the exp

I love my country: India , but
I hate many of its rulers, as
they speak for the poor and
act for  tycoons bellicose, and-
Diversity sighs  in armed Unity;
The selfish corrupted in unity
March ahead on graves crafty.
       I love my country: India , but
August fifteenth :  with freedom,
opened  all devilish forces
out of  Hell to fell all virtues.
Grim faced Buddha smiles
Like a  nuclear Phantom ,his
tears  drip on tomb  of Peace.
No white dove sits on dome
It bleeds in the lap of Buddha.
If birth is the cause of gloom.
who  stops one from bloom?
Dearth of berth clamour for
Death  of birth at the womb.
        I love my country: India , but
Souls are free on lovely Earth
Lay  bodies strain  to survive.
A nominal word equanimity
Gushes in landslide infirmity.
Service becomes self –service,
In black ink sleeps  Socialism.
Fear Neurosis like King Kamsa
Keeps Liberty  behind the bars.
Healthy, wealthy Bharat Matha
Groans in labour room for Santi.
Note: 1). August fifteenth= 15 August 1947 when India  became free from  Briton. 2).Buddha=Gutham Buddha(Prince Sidhardha) who established Buddhism.3).Kamsa= The mythological character , uncle of Lord Krishna who chained even his sister Devaki out of the fear  psychosis. 4),Bharat Matha= Indians consider Bharat/India as their Mother(Matha)-so it is Mother land not Fatherland for them .Santi/Shanti=a Sanskrit word used in Vedas and Upanishads  of India which means Peace or Islam.

At a Zen temple
I chanted
and blended in
with the Sangha
as though
we were all one being
with one voice,
so another time
I decided
to stand out
as an individual
and chant in my own way,
and then another time
I couldn't keep up
with the group singing
and was kind of
left out of it,
so the world is
one world
with one heart
and one love
as I just read
in another poem,
but this brings up
love and fear
as some think
about the human family
while others think about
One World Government,
and some think
about imagining one world
at peace
while others think about
Business Globalization,
so I think
this is life
and we should embrace
whatever comes
because whatever
will come
and I try
to approach
this one world
with fearlessness
and equanimity.

you taught me that a gun


                           without a bullet


weighs much more than


the one


               that has something to hold.

O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we ****** ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.

But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
already feel the pressure of another.
Hatred is our first response. And lovers,
are they not forever invading one another's
boundaries? -although they promised space,
hunting and homeland. Then, for a sketch
drawn at a moment's impulse, a ground of contrast
is prepared, painfully, so that we may see.
For they are most exact with us. We do not know
the contours of our feelings. We only know
what shapes them from the outside.

Who has not sat, afraid, before his own heart's
curtain? It lifted and displayed the scenery
of departure. Easy to understand. The well-known
garden swaying just a little. Then came the dancer.
Not he! Enough! However lightly he pretends to move:
he is just disguised, costumed, an ordinary man
who enters through the kitchen when coming home.
I will not have these half-filled human masks;
better the puppet. It at least is full.
I will endure this well-stuffed doll, the wire,
the face that is nothing but appearance. Here out front
I wait. Even if the lights go down and I am told:
"There's nothing more to come," -even if
the grayish drafts of emptiness come drifting down
from the deserted stage -even if not one
of my now silent forebears sist beside me
any longer, not a woman, not even a boy-
he with the brown and squinting eyes-:
I'll still remain. For one can always watch.

Am I not right? You, to whom life would taste
so bitter, Father, after you - for my sake -
slipped of mine, that first muddy infusion
of my necessity. You kept on tasting, Father,
as I kept on growing, troubled by the aftertaste
of my so strange a future as you kept searching
my unfocused gaze -you who, so often since
you died, have been afraid for my well-being,
within my deepest hope, relinquishing that calmness,
the realms of equanimity such as the dead possess
for my so small fate -Am I not right?

And you, my parents, am I not right? You who loved me
for that small beginning of my love for you
from which I always shyly turned away, because
the distance in your features grew, changed,
even while I loved it, into cosmic space
where you no longer were...: and when I feel
inclined to wait before the puppet stage, no,
rather to stare at is so intensely that in the end
to counter-balance my searching gaze, an angel
has to come as an actor, and begin manipulating
the lifeless bodies of the puppets to perform.
Angel and puppet! Now at last there is a play!
Then what we seperate can come together by our
very presence. And only then the entire cycle
of our own life-seasons is revealed and set in motion.
Above, beyond us, the angel plays. Look:
must not the dying notice how unreal, how full
of pretense is all that we accomplish here, where
nothing is to be itself. O hours of childhood,
when behind each shape more that the past lay hidden,
when that which lay before us was not the future.

We grew, of course, and sometimes were impatient
in growing up, half for the sake of pleasing those
with nothing left but their own grown-upness.
Yet, when alone, we entertained ourselves
with what alone endures, we would stand there
in the infinite space that spans the world and toys,
upon a place, which from the first beginnniing
had been prepared to serve a pure event.

Who shows a child just as it stands? Who places him
within his constellation, with the measuring-rod
of distance in his hand. Who makes his death
from gray bread that grows hard, -or leaves
it there inside his rounded mouth, jagged as the core
of a sweet apple?.......The minds of murderers
are easily comprehended. But this: to contain death,
the whole of death, even before life has begun,
to hold it all so gently within oneself,
and not be angry: that is indescribable.
___


Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

here the grass look up brunette trunks, branched arms flex their
form is calm, spindly fingers bloom their open palms
there they reach for spreading clouds
encapsulated sounds of gentle leaves, green noise
orange hues through cherry waves of grape and lemon, sweetened
pecks of the sun set in amber—morsels of melody, snipped bits of

things in canon
contrapuntal
sprouting airgerms
fugal, fungal

By definition, talent is to have natural aptitude or skill,
So naturally for a poet like myself,
Talent is what happens when artistry
Becomes the integration of poetic elements—
Transferred from savage seas of thought
To the nakedness of a sheet of paper—
A voice of confidence composing songs of beauty in motion,
Live wired passion sparking spirit lifting inspiration.

Talent is within the heart of whom possesses it—
If the vessel is tainted with chaos
Then the outcome of devastation is imminent
If the vessel is painted with endearment
Then the outcome of equanimity is prominent

By definition, talent is to have natural aptitude or skill,
So naturally for a poet like myself,
Talent is a gift ,one not obtained freely—
nor does it find its way to everyone,
but it is the duty of the talented
to be inspiration for the talent-less—
To be a human of poetry,
A messenger of the earth,
Parallel to fellow man,
no matter the race, creed or gender.

Talent is within the heart of whom possesses it—
If the vessel is tainted with chaos
Then the outcome of devastation is imminent
If the vessel is painted with endearment
Then the outcome of equanimity is prominent.

Joseph R. Adomavicia

Against the saturated
Horizon of dawn,
Loitering in the dark timbre
Of emerging consciousness -
Dissipating somnolence
And preemptive despair,
Tacitly adumbrate the
Yawning abyss.
Chastened by the cunning and
Lubricious nihilism,
Igniting fermented provocations,
Silent subterfuge; death,
By mirth - the inane;
Lament of the mundane.

Fallow paradigms, accretions of
The last gasp -
Evaporating empty liturgies
Of suspicion;
Charity and equanimity -
Lost in confinement,
Triumphant avarice bearing
Descendants
Of intransigence;
Wielding imperious
Schemes of orthodoxy.

Pollard fragments of
Silken tapestry,
Miasma draped depression
Abridging;
Conversely,
Permuted flurries of anxiety
Dislodge
The vestiges of meaning
That abide
In brazen equivocation.

Tributaries of dogma reach
Their confluence,
Watershed moment,  
Numinous effusion
Streams naked epiphany,
The precarious vision -
A gesture of providence,
Certainty and contingency;
Gratuitously derivative, life
Equals choice.

Verdant branches of intention;
And opportunity the vine,
Live forward -
The pen, my voice,
Piquant conduit pouring,
Exuberant wine.

Footprints found in givenness
Underline,
Penumbrae of my soul;
Mirrored silhouettes,
Thoughts and words engender;
And in verse adorn
Fecund soil, Line after line,
The cosmos altered,
Continuum of permanence -
Artist’s art articulating
Essence of my imagination,
I proliferate, I design
Phrases unique,
Participation mystique.

Words creating world,
The apparatus of infinity
Heidegger, ontologically precise,
Language -
The house of Being,
Ineffable, Promethean
Literary devise -
Envisioning possibility,
And abundance to allow,
I occur
Inhabit
Manifest
Future phenomena
Experienced as now.

©2008 & ©2011 W.S. Warner

Now
It is time
To give yourself up.

Surrender,
Abandon all struggle,
Thoughts, worries and hopes.

Now
It is time
To be Silent.

Be as heavy and still
As the highest mountain.

Be as light and serene
As the delicate flower.

Now
It is time
To listen.

Listen in pure silence
As if trying to hear the voice of the sun
Rising at dawn.

Listen to the one who hears
And rest in this
Timeless equanimity.

Vernarth and his companions delighted in the company of the biosphere since he was in the Eclectic Spiritual Portal, and in this dimension only he could be. Later, they communicated only through his donkeys, when they wanted to send them messages or share with him, they mounted one of these equids and they could pass into this atmosphere of ultraviolet light that separated them. More than an egregious Pythagorean calculation, he already stood out in his eon of matter-spiritual energy Vernacentricus, as a quantum station of the geodesy of the Megaron that has already begun to be built. At this precious moment the secular and demiurge satellites of him arrive, they came with the foundation of the points to refer to definitively raise the Ultramundis Vernacentricus. From the Vóreios or boreal the apocalypse of San Juan will be intertestamental with the canons of Zefian that transmigrated from the powers from the transversal valleys of the Horcondising, essentially following the sensory track of the Nothofagus Obliqua to attract the iterated populations of the forest.
The patriarchs and the orthodox mountain range appeared in the cords of the fungi called Ambrosiella ceratocystidaceae, to provide the Ambrosia Mercurial, as a nutritional addition to the main pilasters of the temple, with great influence of fungal fungi. Everything was beginning to demarcate from the eruv of the Zefian arrow that was named Tetarto Vélos, or fourth arrow that was already beginning with its culminating operation with the borer beetles, demarcating the urev of the Vóreios throughout the region and on the oaks of Patmos, that began to be located from the Meli Witran Mapu Mapuche winds, beginning with Pikún-kürüf Northwind with the first two arrows of the Taxotas, and Sur Waiwén, of the Pezhetairoi, of the quantum of transmigration of the Horcondising-Panhellenic sub-mythology. Then the Puelche drags the borer beetles with more force to lift the uprising fungi of the Mandragoron by the eastern vertical, to culminate with the Lafkén-kürüf all attached to the axis that supports them from this great bilocation. The boreal is demarcated, so that the Necromancer Ezpatkul with his Augrum and gold teeth, twisted the tendency of the beetles to move the main columns of the frontispiece, being colossal in reality with twice the diameter of the central ones. Then the conclusive and posterior ones of the rectangular quadrant of the Beit Hamikdash were bilocated, to bilocate the Bern Olive Trees from Gethsemane so that they finally joined the Meltemi, and towards the aeolian winds of Tramontane Eolionimia falling on the Tekhelet of Paul of Tarsus, dropping relevant heights of some cranes with gravitating silt on their extremities, and with garbeas that were secondarily colonized on the banks of the desert areas of the rocky Hamada. As was previously proverbial, three birds climbed reflecting the crown of the kings in Bethlehem, Arriving at the sacred native city, and beginning the choirs of Nativity and passion for the hiss in tenuity on the twelve Giant Camels, where they paid special attention to rebuild another temple with a sigh greater than a Sheba Dean. The canon of Policleto was renewed with Zefian who agreed with San Juan, for this kanon that will be the relevant line of topographic surveying. Thus the basal measurements of the golden number will begin with the acroteria concerted summer seats of prosperity next to the Metopes. Ezpatkul would bring with his magic the red blood cells of Betelgeuse along Leiak with all the Templar three-dimensional morphology, naming this singular parapsychology of Pope Urban II who proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont, in France, on November 27, 1095, to delineate the paradigm in the anatomy of Gaugamela bled into Vernarth's breastplate, as the archaic and first crusade that would inspire Christian supremacy, which was already anticipated before the Christian era to come. It will be visible gestures of the trajectory of the arrows of the Zefian Torah that were deposited with their hallelujahs from the ***** of Crete. The sulfur yellow and red blood cells marked the radiosity of the Eclectic Portal that opened to give Vernarth material egress, so he would take his tools and go with his donkey's escorts for the chromatic that will be sulfur yellow and red blood cells, both dependent on the complementation with the Cinnabar, and in the raised bodies of Court V of the Helleniká Necropolis in Kímolos.

Under vileness or absence of light among darkness or apocryphal light of Evil, in contrast to the robust equanimity of light and shadow partisan of Saint John the Apostle, for the hegemonic good of his incorruptible vision. The naturalness made the world apologetic with the immune defenses of the polish textures, they invoiced proportional mathematical measures ibidem of the Hommo Novis, and of the Geometric Pythagoreanism for a body seven and a half times of Polykleitos, starting from the base to the feet as the base of the plinth or frieze until reaching near the capital that exemplifies the chin, before reaching the cornice, highlighting the figure of the capital with the front of the proportional ligament between the trunk, and the columns duly. Here the seven-headed Kanon of a David would recite the measures of the psalms, or beads in degrees with hoped-for dimensions. The kinetics was earth towed by towing carts in tetra bronze arrows, which balanced the unbalanced balance and harmony of the created whole. The symmetry of the transverse poles was muscled to make kinetic centripetal in the inertia of the bolt when hitting the faint glow of the canon rays. Making himself the sustenance in the stone and the mound, towards the Vernarth counterpose when the Himathion was tried, he appeared disguised and in composing. After this initial task, they approached the fire and scalding water to **** herbs, which pretended to be the formula of the backhoe extracted from the palimpsest of the generals of Alexander the Great, when they distributed their illegitimate Ark with royal titles; they were Perdiccas, Antipater, Crátero, Eumenes de Cardia, and others like the satraps who came to be enunciated as kings; Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. Residing only the most substantial military colleague of them in this parapsychological saga Vernarth; and his brother Etréstles de Kalavrita who seconded and predestined him in his monolithic, and in the constituent sovereignty of Polis, for the purpose of reigning and raising his Kopis and Xifos intertwined in aldehyde manumissions and in the alcoholic carbonyl residues emanated from the Backhoe ferment and Nepenthe, depositing LSD in substantial amounts to align itself with Seleucus, and materially present itself in the sphere of Patmos as two representatives of both empires, one ancient Christian and the other Panhellenic, placing Seleucus in that totalitarianism over that of Alexander the Great, now extinct. On the last day after working and being satisfied with the construction work of the frontispiece, and its major columns, Vernarth joins them after temporarily leaving the eclectic portal, they sit by the fire to review the plans of the subsequent construction process del Megaron, along with his seven donkeys, mentioning Borker's necromancy. Since the omens of Wontehlimar, the linemen before Borker became reigning, for the static balustrade that will surround the Megaron, where all the Ibics rings were enlisted chorally by the patronage of the Hellenic Orthodox legacy of Alexander the Great after he was rescued by Wonthelimar from Babylon, and finally take you to your physical and spiritual shelter. The eruv of the Nótos was demarcated, surpassing the limits of the rings of stefánes Íbix, or Hoops of ibix, like nano kvantikoí daktýlioi, Nano-Quantum Ring auguring sensitize the dermis and its carpal phalanges. From the intertestamental, such as in Vóreios, passages from the Old Testament are explored here that says…: “The temple that was the only legitimate sanctuary of the Israelite people contained within it the Ark of the Covenant, a golden altar, and candlesticks of the same metal. , a table with sacred loaves and other utensils used to carry out the worship of the god Yahveh. It was located on the esplanade of Mount Moriá, in the city of Jerusalem, possibly where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are located. From this dome the larnax of the Great Macedonian, a prioris, the schismatics of ancient Christianity, and orthodox Judaic will be derived, separating from each other, after the fall of the second temple. Of this class and previously this was detonated due to the undivided troops of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who destroyed it in 586 BC, also taking captives a large part of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah, to Mesopotamia, giving rise to the exile and captivity of the Hebrews in Babylon. A reflective Borker of this premonition, he takes the Ibics Rings and selects one of them to join them with the first Zefian Arrow, as nano Kvantikoí Daktýlioi, quantum Nano-ring, to ensue in future similar events, avoiding invasions that cause looting and destruction. of the temple to be built on Patmos.

Nano-scales for Borker's nanotechnological conception, and estimates of threats of invasions and climatic changes, in one billion (109) and one billionth (10-9). In a meter there are one billion nanometers or, in other words, a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. For those who will have to configure the dimensions of the Mandragoron "Temple of Vernarth" with carbon atoms, the support will be made in chemical units for the re-conception of nature, and its two- or three-dimensional networks. The nanotubes with 60 carbons, distributed in 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons, according to the geometric patterns of the cellular scale, in the conformation of the Hexagonal Primogeniture, being in this way concealed by the Ibics Rings, for each linear meter and cubic, traced by a nanometer which is one-billionth of a meter. Here, the borer beetles will catch the fungi ambrosiella ceratocystidaceae and will displace the virals that move geometrically from the beams of the Icosahedron.

The ranks of Falangists moved triangularly in multiple directions, to reach the Austral del Nótos de Borker, thus they would form the magic vectors of the polyhedron internally, triangulating at the top of the ram that carries an illustrious triangular phalanx, opening up the areas with its prop. vulnerable, to consolidate the buttress of the façade; the Áullos Kósmos, and pay homage to the apse that was filled with rejoicing. Sones of the philosopher Plato, made them regular or perfect in convex polyhedra, such that on all their faces were regular and equal polygons were made, and in all solid angles also equal. From this boulevard, the theology of Vernarth and Alexander the Great, fully professor and Platonic guide, will follow, making nomenclatures of nanostructures that affirm the volume and structure of the central sections of the radier, and their foundation bases shielded by the icosahedron in the nanotechnological scale, having physical material cells, for adaptation of structural changes and their environment.

The volume will be adapted microscopically, to analyze small particles with the return of the fourth arrow or Tetra Sagita of Zefian, absorbing nutrients and discarding the environmental threats based on carbon dioxide, to make a limiting membrane beauty, which moderates the nanoparticles that borer beetles were developing. The solidity of the partitions and walls will have the exact proportion of the nanomaterials, to adapt to the general area of the Mandragoron Nótos, which will ooze the surpluses due to the porosities, towards a volume highly resistant to invasions of limestone nanomaterials, and boulders that are made from the flow of the buttress of the apse that rises towards Aorion. The interior and exterior faces will be supplements of prayers of Prochoro, in didactics that will shield with the Antiphons Benedictus, and the hive of Plato's Icosahedron, becoming a consular material organism, and solid in interstices or leftovers from the feces of the Borers, until pasting and to reach the volume of the polyhedron, and its twenty faces pointing towards the physiognomy of the boulevard, tracing the general volume of the Mandragoron, and intercommunicating the quantum support and its theological harmony.

Says Borker: “if the organic cells operate with homage and with greater multicellular fields, here are the nanoparticles, in greater fields of fiatto, and in the slides that will recirculate in favor of the throat of the Mandragoron, and in the carbon nanotubes, essential elements of the biosphere and in useful layers of life that retrace the rest. There will be 20 linear meters in the area that lavishes the width and height, the projection of this scale of nanotechnology, will make the three-dimensional shape and a large voluminous serial in the Austral Nótos ”Vernarth's purging dimension, made him materialize at times and laugh out loud because he knew that everyone who was with him loved him! and from this fraction of faith, the Angel Raphael diagnoses them bread with archangelic essence; herb with great healing powers, especially in the dimension of the eclectic portal that allowed Vernarth to concern himself with material living beings.

Definitely, the second step of consolidation of the Megaron was established in the linear that the seven donkeys eagerly left, as masons and cabinetmakers who worked together with the Hexagonal Primogeniture. From this moment everything begins to have an inter-dimensional aspect, from the Invisible Eclectic Portal to the majestic geodesy and orography of this temple, which incorporated everyone for a charitable epiphany together with everyone in the Profitis Ilias, which was already crowned as the cusp Spiritual World of the Vernarthian Eclectic.

Blinded by iniquity
Being guided by unexplainable certitude
I can’t predict where the pieces will fall
But I will remember where they stood in the sky
They say I’m not at the point of grasping it all
Saying I’m a follower who needs to lead
I’m just attempting to find peace of mind
And a silent breeze of tranquility
I’ll still be there when the atmosphere fails
When widespread panicked screams break the barrier of sound
The cadence of the populations of hysterical cries match the racing beats of their hearts
I’ve tried hoisting my pressures and trouble over my head
And unburden myself of them
To put them in front of me instead
And dissect them all so I might comprehend
The hour glass goes against us
We have such ample time
So many paths we can walk
Full of laughs, pain and love, you take yours
I’ve found mine
 
      -Tommy Johnson

Among pelagian travelers,
Lost on their lewd conceited way
To Massachusetts, Michigan,
Miami or L.A.,

An airborne instrument I sit,
Predestined nightly to fulfill
Columbia-Giesen-Management's
Unfathomable will,

By whose election justified,
I bring my gospel of the Muse
To fundamentalists, to nuns,
to Gentiles and to Jews,

And daily, seven days a week,
Before a local sense has jelled,
From talking-site to talking-site
Am jet-or-prop-propelled.

Though warm my welcome everywhere,
I shift so frequently, so fast,
I cannot now say where I was
The evening before last,

Unless some singular event
Should intervene to save the place,
A truly asinine remark,
A soul-bewitching face,

Or blessed encounter, full of joy,
Unscheduled on the Giesen Plan,
With, here, an addict of Tolkien,
There, a Charles Williams fan.

Since Merit but a dunghill is,
I mount the rostrum unafraid:
Indeed, 'twere damnable to ask
If I am overpaid.

Spirit is willing to repeat
Without a qualm the same old talk,
But Flesh is homesick for our snug
Apartment in New York.

A sulky fifty-six, he finds
A change of mealtime utter hell,
Grown far too crotchety to like
A luxury hotel.

The Bible is a goodly book
I always can peruse with zest,
But really cannot say the same
For Hilton's Be My Guest.

Nor bear with equanimity
The radio in students' cars,
Muzak at breakfast, or--dear God!--
Girl-organists in bars.

Then, worst of all, the anxious thought,
Each time my plane begins to sink
And the No Smoking sign comes on:
What will there be to drink?

Is this ma milieu where I must
How grahamgreeneish! How infra dig!
****** from the bottle in my bag An analeptic swig?

Another morning comes: I see,
Dwindling below me on the plane,
The roofs of one more audience
I shall not see again.

God bless the lot of them, although
I don't remember which was which:
God bless the U.S.A., so large,
So friendly, and so rich.

The breeze whispers to us
such human things
as the fresh ae(the)r flows
caressing our skin.
That shiver down her back
was my name in the wind.
Feel it at night
as the street-light spins.
Wander my city
to the ends of the dark,
Seeking so surely that teen-lost spark.

"Things have gotten closer to the sun
And I've done things in small doses
So don't think that I'm pushing you away
When you're the one that I've kept closest"
Look me in the eyes.

"What were the skies like when you were young?"

A patriotic fervor producing fealty
A noble cause compelling loyalty
Paired with a callous indignity
Brash enlistee plunges toward destiny
Honor's badge worn with impunity
Duty's moniker embossed with magnanimity
Insatiable bloodlust quelshing all insecurity
Unbridled ego clamoring a garrulous enmity
Toward the villains who shattered blithe serenity

First skirmish, pageantry displaced by gravity
Mettle varnished with aura of invincibility
First battle, fallen comrades question mortality
Successive battles, severed limbs, caustic wounds challenge credulity
Fragile mind being conditioned to atrocity
War's heavy mantle now shorn of indemnity
Threatening mind's sanity, hearth's perpetuity
Once faceless foes now scream their humanity
Once noble leaders brim with insincerity
Supportive countrymen now fickle, distant entity
Cheering press now rank with duplicity
Only solace, hardened comrades equanimity

The doctor rubbed my sore shoulder
spraying copious amounts of analgesic compound
to freeze the area
from the side of my eye I caught the
silver glint of a 6 inch needle poised
to penetrate my quivering shoulder
with cortisone
intense pain exploded through my consciousness
as the syringe fracked into the deeper regions of
my shoulder

Afterwards, while reflecting on this incident
I thought about polarities and Newton’s Law:
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”
The pain I had just experienced did not occur in a vacuum
Somewhere along the time continuum I’d set up that opposite
swing of the pendulum

I recollected all the intense moments of extreme and dizzying
sense enjoyment, lust and gratification
my mind has sought and indulged in with rabid satisfaction
always wanting more, restless, never content or at peace

When we examine this world, and its quintessential duality
we are confronted with extremes at every angle
Hot, cold, up, down, win, lose
We can’t have birth without death and so on
hmm…. I thought as the enlightenment bulb
went off in my head
This is why many great sages and saints
fostered a way of life that
transcended duality

Lord Buddha extolled the “Middle Path”
He described the middle way as moderation
between the excesses of carnal indulgence
and self mortification

Aristotle gave us the “Golden Mean”
“every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.”

Sathya Sai Baba states:
“The object of meditation is equanimity,
the object of equanimity is samadhi (enlightenment or self realization)"

This beautiful quote by Bhagavan Baba is redolent with wisdom
and sublime beauty:

“Surrender to God and to life means the absence of duality
and being of the same nature as God.
But such a state is beyond man’s will.
Surrender is when doer, deed and object are all God.
It comes naturally to a heart filled with love for God.
God is as a spring of fresh and sweet water in the heart.
The best tool to dig a well to that inexhaustible source and
savor its sweetness, is Japa (Chanting God’s Name)

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, “Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!”

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

A holy dip in a river, revere you may,
Or any philanthropic act may it be,
Only wisdom finds divine salvation,
From cynic cycles of birth and death,
Believe in boundless bliss beyond ….17

Relish respite in temple serene,
Cherish in the shadow of a tree,
Squat or lie on a flat ground,
Renounce worldly comforts,
Peace prevails in plenty.
Believe in boundless bliss beyond ….18

Dwell you may, in ecstasy,
Of fanfare and fortitude,
Attached to materialism,    
But, to revel in the divine bliss is;  
The only redemption of lingering life.
Believe in boundless bliss beyond ….19

Delve into the divine discourse of deliverance,
Sip the holy drops of sacred rivers,
Worship the lordship of Almighty
The Lord of Death dare not pinch you.
Believe in boundless bliss beyond …20

Pangs of birth, panic of death,
Over and over, again and again,
Make one and all sick and sullen.
Cultivate divine diary of deeds,
Enroll the ultimate bliss of eternity.
Believe in boundless bliss beyond …..21

He who cogitates cool inward,
Be content with what he has,
Contempt to what he has not,
May look like an innocent child,
Or an indecent mad cap outward.    
Believe in boundless bliss beyond …..22

Question yourself –
Who are you and me?
And other kith and kin?
There lies delusion in delight,
Of experience and exposure,
Of trials and tribulations,
Ending up in ****** dreams.
Believe in boundless bliss beyond               23

Almighty is all pervasive,
In you and me and all around,
To be furious is to be foolish,
Drop ego; uphold equality& equanimity,
As the best way to sacred sanctum  
Believe in boundless bliss beyond                24

My brother Zuo Si tells me I am well trained in the technique of writing, so well trained that when I come to put brush to paper I don’t have to punish myself with deep thoughts. See now how my hand flows to and fro and the characters appear.

I write a rhapsody for my Lord.

The philosopher Lu Ji says that whilst poetry traces emotion with delicacy, rhapsody embodies objects with light. My rhapsody is a bright star between Ts’an and Ch’en. On this bitter day I am describing the pine and cypress trees on the high peaks, where the first snows of winter cling hesitantly to their branches in the still air. I reflect on the emerald glow of their foliage in spring, their heavy fragrance in summer, the song of their branches in the autumn winds, their stillness in the desolation of winter.

I have a distant court in this vast palace. This suits my temperament and my literary disposition. I have the joy of my garden and the views of the Tai mountains.  I am a curiosity here. If I hold any of the arts of love I have little idea what they are. I do not spend my days plucking the dark hairs from my arms or deliberating over my wardrobe. It is understood that I am often unwell.

I aspire to arrange all things properly: to calm myself to write, to let my imagination sail on the open seas. My brother tells me I was chosen because of my stillness, observant gaze and gentle voice. If I am beautiful it is only because I absorb into myself the grace of the natural world I see about me. It is this self that dreams in my imagination. When I am with my Lord he touches my petalled mouth, inhales the distinct perfume of my nervousness, places his hand against my cheek and bids me speak.

I shift the thick blind to gaze at my garden. It waits for spring as I do. Winter only draws to itself past memories or desires for the future. It is too cold and damp to rest, to hibernate like the snake. It is easy to dream for a while, and being trained in the art of literature I can, with concentration, place myself anywhere.

Now, I am walking below the tall trunks of the cypress groves high on Linzi ridge. Looking down on the green river I absorb the aura of these great trees.

Now, I am kneeling at my desk, my feet wrapped in furs against the cold: I pour tea to warm the cup I hold in my writing hand.

Now, I ponder on the recluse Chi Songzi wandering amongst the highest pines to attain the Way. I follow his careful movements on the rocky path, his intense attention given to every live thing. I feel the different qualities of the breeze that lifts from the dark valley below.  My bare feet gather to themselves a miniature garden; soil, seeds, insects and grubs cling to my toes. Treading pine needles release a heady odure; above me the rock thrush chatter in the swaying branches.

The cold returns to my fingers and this vision retreats. This room is soon dark as the afternoon progresses. My maid has, during my oblivious state, left rice and vegetables. My rhapsody holds to its unfinished state with equanimity. I must of course fashion into its closing lines statements to please my Lord. The cypress tree trunks are steadfast like a man of wisdom or some such nonsense. This must wait for my attention on another day.

I am not like my brother who writes so slowly that his Rhapsody of the Capitals took up (it is said) ten years of his attention. My thoughts are agile and come to the page fully-formed. If I am calm (and well) a rhapsody may be finished in within my monthly cycle.  Much of this time is taken in dreaming, returning to images of my childhood, recalling conversations, remembering the thoughts and expressions of others. I read too the tales of travellers and poets. In summer my garden becomes a map of this world onto which I place and arrange my thoughts. As I tend my plants I tend these thoughts.

I now cover with a cloth the characters written in these past chilled hours and attend for a while to the business of palace life. An interview with my Lord’s second wife’s cousin – there has been a bereavement in her court and so a request to discuss a memorial ode. A scribe from the imperial archives demands I view a recent sequence of poems before it takes its place in Emperor Wu’s personal collection. I need to discuss the household accounts with my cook.

On my walnut chest a letter from Zuo Si: to read, to answer. His second gujin is wrapped in my bedclothes against the damp air. At night its delicate shape lies next to me. My left hand will caress its many silk strings, its long lacquered body, the smooth ivory of its pegs. Even in these winter months he is travelling, searching out those scholars and artists who have retreated from the official world of court and patronage to obscurity in remote places. After many years of work on the history of city life he is now writing poetry of seclusion and the wilderness. Famed through the Northern Kingdom his poetry and songs open every door, his work so often copied it is said to effect the price of paper.

My maid has already lit the butter lamp in my inner chamber, the protocol due to my position. I remove the clothes of the day, bathe briefly and dress in my court gown and rich furs. It is my duty to wait. By my side is the scroll of my Rhapsody on Thoughts of Separation. A recent favourite of my Lord’s, we have read this together in the stillness of the Tiger hours. The poem speaks with the voice of a young concubine newly separated from her home and family. She tells of her loneliness, her tears of anxiety, her ten thousand unremitting cares. Such words appear to stir my Lord . . .

Mind of Compassion

Mind of Serenity

Mind of Equanimity

Above below and all around

Benevolent, boundless, peaceful and friendly mind

In all four cardinal directions

No limit to the unfolding of the heart

Showing benevolence

This is the way to communion with the divine

Being gentle with the breath

Feeling the kindness with the breath

Gently kindly patiently

Staying with our experience

With this body with this moment

You'll never get to experience the depth of the still water until you're submerged.
The iceberg of the mind...
There are no mistakes, only lessons manifesting in various degrees of challenge.
Adversity is the crucible through which character is shaped.
Let my equanimity be mistaken for indifference,
as my tolerance is for acceptance.
Because the mountain piercing the heavens is actually a dormant volcano.

my rose petal lips vanished in the sky,
hazel eyes to stare at moon until they die,
soft skin and a world of consciousness,
my soul keeps breathing,
a light of sunless whims and wishes,
melting disease of tears drowned in euphoria.

Tripped out blackened falling past back through the CRACKs again
Blasted wasted all of it tasted so FRESH again
I am who I say I am, but what am eYe?
Perception, damnation, ascension, redemption
Falling, falling, rising, writhing in the light the serpent tWiZtS
Like a DNA double no triple quintuple helix outside the bounds
Imagine the sounds, can you expound on the downtime?
Know what I'm saying if it's not clear to you
I question the norm and fall back into you
Am I insane? What is sane? To feel pain? Or to ignore it all, fall, fall, only to rise, the skies have opened up and spilled their seed upon the ground
Sounds like Chaos. I'll make it.
Peace. Equanimity. Balance. Words have power, but we give it to them. A serpent could just as easily be a dove. Vibrate. Ommmmmmm. Sanskit. Hebrew. Who knew? Enochian keys and Christian disease. Why do they believe? Because they're scared and it's all they have to turn to. They are given no other options. Open your ******* MINDS. Question authority. Think for yourselves. Nobody else can tell you what is true. There are no authorities, we just let them boss us around. **** hierarchy. I'm a monkey, you're monkey. Just because we can string words together doesn't mean they make sense. Just because you write something on paper doesn't make it true. Change is good. Any change would be welcome in this stagnant society. Hey, look, that kid can spell deoxyribonucleic acid. He must be smart. Don't believe it. Cost effective *******. **** Newspeak. Why are you letting them take away your freedoms? Are you really that insecure? **** the police state mentality. You don't have to listen to those people. Don't listen to me either. Listen to yourselves, your inner voice. You know what is right. Man's law is not God's law, and the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, these are all MAN's words, twisting the eternal truth into chains to bind you to their ways. **** that. You will not find God in a book. Think. Question. Go off the deep end. Lose your ego. Don't be afraid to experiment. That cliff is waiting, jump, jump, JUMP, you won't fall, you'll fly, oh **** they fell for it, you're falling, you're falling, you're ******* FLYING, wings, and it's all all right now, ain't it, off across the Universe to better brighter things, ******* words limit the conveyance of the true message, but it's all right, you'll get there, just forget everything you know, and BAM! it's right there.
Free your mind. Be. Om. Words lie. Truth is.