No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
— John Donne
Passively feeling the scent of the clouded rose garden – penetrated by rays of the morning sun, piercing the dowry of “once was.”
Innocuous to the tumultuous wake of the tempest stirring the air in the realms of “being” and “becoming;” as having struck the heart of the standing armies with a clipped nail of the smallest left finger, they cry-out with gentle moans of understanding – feigning the cooing dove having left the garden for a sheltering tree.
This is the tightened drum,
… and the beating of the tightened drum,
… and the singing of the beating of the tightened drum,
… and the echoing of the singing of the beating of the tightened drum,
… and the silence between the echoing of the singing of the beating of the tightened drum,
As the loins ache for birthing flesh of clinging bereavement on this pregnant occasion, there is a pause to reflect upon the garden of roses; upon the olive tree once stood, with the scent that felt of perfect calm before the eye of the storm… the tempest… tempting to defile the illusions of a great battle as this world is created.
… in the silence between the echoing.
… in the echoing of the singing.
… in the singing of the beating.
… in the beating.
… of the drum.
… and the drum is tight.
The drum bowl of olive wood and the human skin stretched – just birthed – sounding by way of its emptiness.
The tempting, the temptation, the clinging of flesh to a sensationalized spirit of “once was” as the dowry is spent and the child has died.
Sit in the rose garden in tranquil abiding and beat the drum, as the ticking of time means to frolic with the dove’s flight; and know that the illusion is the bereaved faces for “never was” and the symbolic rose is loves enduring shelter.
Understand, and make peace with its thorns. Appreciate the sensuality of its blossoms – the silky softness of the petals, moistened with mourning’s dew drops; euphoric perfume, its redness as lips in passion of the approaching tenderness. ‘Tis not human; but is made of the same stuff.
by Cimi Skywalker
13 May 2013
Do we suck the marrow from life in the fear of something …
losing something… losing what?
… a memory, a recollection
… of a life half lived, … of a death half died?
We put compassion upon the pedestal of righteousness.
Compassion, as a great force, to reckon with the apathy we feel for another’s misfortune, another’s sorrow, pain, suffering. All good Buddhists know compassion to be one of the highest percepts. Yet, perhaps it is essential to understand the base teaching before moving on.
It is easy to submit to cultural pressures and believe that to show compassion is to demonstrate sentiment or take affectionate action in an attempt to lessen one’s hurt. There is immediate reward for such belief, because the altruistic intentions are unmistakable.
None-the-less, in the Sutras, through parody & illustration, it is taught that we may simultaneously show gratitude, and admonish our parents, teachers, and sovereigns, for the sake of upholding the great Dharma; for in the great scheme of things, it is a fools errand to act within this lifetime as if it is the final opportunity to expound a teaching, or for oneself to attain enlightenment.
We are but tiny ants on an elephants back, yet, as small as we seem, crawling to those tender places, we may still manage to irritate an elephant. Yet, once sat upon, we will have to be patient for our next incarnation.
Can we die with compassion, or do we finally let loose what we hold so dear.
Is compassion merely food for the ego – an ego, no less, of the living?
We value life as if, to lose it. is to lose something. Is the loss of ours a gain for others. or do we all lose by the loss, as if an invisible thread passes through the lives of everyone and we feel the breaking of that thread – a tugging, a breaking-away – every moment a life ends? How can we suture the rip in our soul? How can we strengthen this thread so that no death leaves it frayed?
The grossest form of attachment is the love which remains attached to a thirst which satisfies but our own conceit. Only in sluing the very body we hold so dear can we realize an unconditional love within which there is the realization that the body has no substance; and death of the body is not death of the unconditional love; because the significance of attachment IS conditionality. So whilst the body remains, unconditionality may only be approximated or approached.
Perhaps … imagine thus, and imagine unconditional love as a co-requisite for immortality.
The fabric of space and time
has lent me a thread to find
It is of a Vedic weave
but of a nature
… one can not cleave
Within the lower hem
is hidden a precious gem
But search the garment down and ’round
… for riches of material greed
… is nowhere found
Yet in the search we gain
the wisdom right-as-rain
Bright as the morning sun
sparkling dewy glean
Clinging upon the blossom
of this embroidered scene
Determination pierces the hollow reluctance of the devotee, knowing that the Master’s teachings are pointed in their delivery – the needle of the morphine filled syringe.
Beckoned by a word; allowing the turtle – looking into the pool from his hollow log – to know his reflection as “truth corrupted.”
The jab is painless for the landscape of scars across the forearm. Mesmerized through simultaneously viewing desolation across the killing fields and the envious corpuscles veining to a purposeful community of organs governing our sensationalized clinging to materialistic values.
The escape is such a contemptible euphoria that heavenly bliss reclines upon the pillowed sofa in such an angelic fashion so as to claim the definition of everything worth living. The company I keep – the Messiah – has healed my every illness.