The forest stream rushes onward to elsewhere
leaves and trees enclose its sound,
sealing the flow into secrecy.
mind and forest. ever-whispering, nocturnal creature.
The darkness has not yet fallen
evening’s grey, shows sky silhouettes,
trees bereft of their green, dressed black,
while the mountain cowers in mist.
mind and mist. enshrines, no thing, an obscure haze.
Close-by, little green lights
hover, here and there.
fire-flies and madness. mist dancers.
sweet temporary distractions.
childlike delight.
mind and life. alive alight at night.
Beyond mid October.
what would time mean?
summer will not return.
is it just a dream?
Look at the hands.
rough skin, grooved lines.
each past thought
imprinted upon the fingertip.
mind alone. living the space of silence.
A recluse.
clothed in simplicity.
caressing solitude.
no thing to do but look at the view.
The view ? uncompromising openness.
window to space, window to mind.
thoughts surface like a death process,
a purification, merciless stream.
dying each second, re-born the next.
Window-watching.
through the minutes, hours, days.
sit still, witness,
the unrelenting storm.
great gusts, karmic winds, and memory
carry the ship like a leaf at sea.
Embrace the storm, a choiceless fact!
resistance is the conflict,
the churning of the water wild,
and danger to the eye of balance.
Remain afloat, raft of sanity.
There is no method for surrender.
No strategy.
Hope? Fear?
both produce sound.
stir the stillness.
to anticipate, or resist,
both upset balance.
to not like what is seen,
to not want what is got,
hell’s defines.
want, want not, eye of the storm.
lurks all shadows,
the demons and distress.
in troubled waters: reacting mind.
Don’t hope or fear
for something else to occur
don’t do, don’t do.
in doing no thing, the raft of sanity,
where doer and the deed are lost.
peace, silence in the welcome storm.
great openness, mother, graceful sanity.
in this non-doing stillness of your womb,
lives suchness.
open-mouthed suchness, swallowed all the offspring.
may the children of one thousand years
breathe her full-breasted freedom.
may they suckle sanity.
Feature image: view from Nagi Gompa, over the Kathmandu valley, the hermitage of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, by unknown.