The h2g2 Poem
Created | Updated Aug 28, 2003
Meditation is - among other things - about stilling and clarifying the mind. It is not about sitting, legs cramping, with a poem
bubbling and burbling in the mind like a noisy stomach half an hour after eating some particularly soupy soup.
The Hall of Statues
In my dream
I entered a temple
dimly lit, perfumed, golden.
Among the shadows were many figures.
Seated.
Rooted.
Grounded.
Eyes closed, robes wrapped around them.
They looked like mountains,
more rooted than trees.
And everywhere the dim and golden light:
candle light,
incense burning.
And the statue of the Buddha,
serene,
there and otherwhere.
And the silent figures,
poised like mountains,
each of them deep within the heartscapes of the mind.
24.12.01
Christmas day is a difficult time for the newly single. It slaps us with our loss directly in the face. This particular year I
decided to opt out of Christmas altogether, and spend a week on a meditation and teaching retreat run by and for Buddhist
women. We spent the latter part of Christmas Eve, all of Christmas Day, and the first part of the 26th in shared silence. I
was not prepared for the pain that welled up out of the silence on Christmas morning, or for my understanding and healing
which came out of the continuing silence later in the day, when I had written this.
The drummer, the rhythm or the drum?
I feel my pain
But is it my pain?
Human experiences is pain.
All living things feel pain.
And love.
And joy.
But pain isolates; separates; divides.
If I feel pain, is it mine?
My very own private pain?
Or is it an expression of all our pain?
Am I the drummer, or the rhythm or the drum?
When the wind finds screeching pipes,
is it the wind that howls?
Is it the water that makes the sound
or the rocks that tumble in it?
So is the pain mine;
or am I the the observer and the witness?
Am I one of the ways that the universe can feel its pain?
25.12.01.
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