The Ox Herding Poems I: A Gate in Samsara
What is the catalyst for our spiritual evolution? What pebble finally grinds to a halt the gears of selfish-prophecy, entrapment and laundered fear? Can we know the who that is seeking and for what we are searching? How much will we endure as we struggle with inertia? Are we running to or away from ourselves? Unanswerable confusions scurry in the mind’s I of the freshly birthed seeker. Perhaps we can only confess that we fear the truth, but we seek it out anyway.
When we come to the door way in the mind we recall that it was always open. An optical delusion you say? Yes. A gate in Samsara? A vague memory nags us with a rumor that this is a reoccurring dream. No more can we ignore it. If only for courage. The fearsome unknown. Ephemeral trust. Red brick and banyon trees mesmerizing as statues. Graffiti - meaningless and full of meaning. We pause. In the rainwater we vaguely discern our reflection in all that there is. In all that there is? It cannot be. How can that be? An optical delusion you said. Of what tradition? Here is a state of shimmering recognition. We gather resolve. Deep breath. And step through.
____ Beginnings
tattooed
shadows ____ guilt
tumbling blackbirds above wheat fields
grain scattered memories
sand
a clock ____ relentless
quite mutterings of imagined conversations
cigarette smoke
the holy water
escape
deep wells ____ desire
here and there they echo
see me chasing for reflections
something to feel
grasp
caverns ____ beyond
shards of light that don’t quite reach
penetrating mystery
raison d'être
the seeker
pock marked
shadows ____ cast
fumbling scarecrow planted motionless
baked black
absent