[
Note: Originally written 4/5/2014. The first of my Buddhist-themed poems.]
The Ideal suspended before us like the apple of Tantalus,
unreachable: we reach, and it recedes into the distance or fades away,
or worse, lead on corrupted minds ever deeper into burning hells,
collecting hellfire to cast onto earth: sweetest daughter of Māra,
weaving her veil of illusion to distract from the cries of a suffering world.
Close your eyes: quiet the mind: observe the commotion fade to silence:
become a transparent eye penetrating the veil to the true reality of things:
dissolve the confusion that clouds vision and distorts consciousness:
perceive the connections among all things from beginning to end of time:
rediscover that what is real and that what is not is not.
Go, bodhisattva, return to the suffering world with clear vision and pure heart:
countless living beings cry for relief from incessant suffering: reconnect:
leave behind the lesser self, distortion of self, moulted like snake's skin:
your self is not the outer shell or inner layers but the center:
as you walk further down the path, show them where it begins:
but they must choose to walk it
for some are blinded by shining ideals
and others by midnight-black despair
confusion clouds their eyes and makes them think
that what is not real is real
and what is real is not real:
clarity reveals the path, and the cosmic currents
that flow through you and me and all beings and all reality,
and the true nature of reality unclouded by faulty vision
and by the three afflictions, addiction repulsion confusion,
and by the lesser self that divides self from self and self from others.
Siddhārtha meditated under a pipal tree
when Māra spied him and panicked:
first he unleashed all the terrors of infinite hells:
failing that, he tried to seduce the prince
with carnal pleasures and illusory ideals:
Siddhārtha endured,
achieved extinction,
and woke up a Buddha.
