Insight’s ours: another
Dust-Speck in the eye!²
Ten thousand attainments—
Cannot match one Awakening!³
Trouble gonna lose us—worry leave us behind
And we’ll stand up proudly in true Peace of Mind.⁴
When the purified & pondering mind is absorbed in Atman,
The Bliss of the heart cannot be stated in words.⁵
Wordless ecstasy of Mystery: where there’s
No thought but feeling lost in itself forever:
Profound—Remote—Immediate—Calm.⁶
Suddenly—all utters itself—
Blessedness soaks the ground!⁷
This—the Immediate, Everyday, Present experience—is It:
The entire & ultimate point for an existence of a universe.⁸
The Clouds above join & separate, the Breeze in the
Courtyard leaves & returns—Life is like that, so
Relax: who can stop us from Celebrating?⁹
I possess the true Buddha Eye—
The marvelous mind of Nirvana—
The true form of the Formless:
The subtle Dharma Gate that
Does not rest on words or letters.¹⁰
¹ Louise Glück, The Red Poppy
² Kuchu tr. Stark & Ikemoto, Joshu’s Word—Nothingness
³ Dogen Zenji tr. Tanahashi & Selkirk, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye
⁴ Carol King, Way Over Yonder
⁵ Upanishads, quoted by Hermann Hesse in Siddhartha tr. Neugroschel
⁶ Richard Eberhart, The Soul Longs to Return Whence it Came
⁷ Denise Levertov, The Antiphon
⁸ Alan Watts, This Is It
⁹ Lu Yu, quoted by Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh
¹⁰ Buddha tr. unknown, Flower Sermon