Returning from so many journeys.
Stories piled on top of stories.
Closing chapter after chapter.
In some small cave...
Hidden away, some text-
Forgotten for centuries.
Held tightly in the silence.
This river of our own mythology.

You! who have abandoning yourself, one too many times.
Having finally sat down -
knowing nothing is forgotten in this place,
only amplified.
This meditation hall filled to the brim.

Stepping back–moving out of this house of dreams.
Into your own center.
Holding this lacquered begging bowl.
holding last year’s dreams over it,
knowing this simple gesture;
hands open…
dropping it leaf by leaf,
into this bottomless bowl.

I was here to celebrate-
After all this living, ---bargaining over.
A place where the hummingbirds come:
To taste the sweetness of your own openness.
The insecurity slips at last-
The rains washes it down
the green hillside
Into the creek, undistinguished
From tears or just the toxins of growing up .

Sitting, like a stone Buddha
Unmoved by the longings and the dislikes .
Now, no need to move away from the Great Suffering,
Or even be enchanted by the Great Joy.
One sits– in even mindedness; with a boundless heart.
Earth, water, fire, air- find no footing here.

One rests, the exile is over.
To praise- form and the formless
A world were Emptiness, just the word.
Brings your hands together.
Gives way to a bow –
In the great understanding.

You know now when they use the words,
Luminous or boundless
It is no stranger,
You know you can sit in the Unknowing.
Blessed by a taste of grace.