There is no object
Without awareness,
There is no Moon
Without Sun.

Paradox

I am either nothing
or everything.

Or, I am the paradox
Which is both.

The Greatest Trick of Them All

I Know that I exist. I am the only measure for what I call 'existence'.

Yet everything arises within myself; my senses and perceptions happen not 'out there' but 'in here', these trees only appear on the back of my retina, nowhere else.

In this way all perception arises spontaneously within myself. Even the concept of 'myself' arises from a deeper silent presence which I will call awareness.

This means that you, dear reader, are but a dream arising from myself like the beautiful surreal images which arise from my deepest sleep.

And yet, for you this is true also. You know that you exist, undeniably so, for perceptions, thoughts, smells, ideas, feelings, emotions and memories arise automatically within you, instantly known by your innate immutable awareness.

In this way You are no dream at all, but the very eye of reality. Indeed for you, I am but a figment, a dream image conjured from your deepest self.

You are my dream
I am yours.

This is the greatest trick
of them all.

The emptiness
of emptiness
Is empty.

The Gift of Oneself (by Valery Larbaud 1881-1957)

I offer myself to each and everyone by way of reward;
It's yours even before you have come to deserve it.

There is something in me,
In the depths of me, at the centre of me,
Something infinitely arid
Like the summit of the highest mountains;
Something that could be likened to the blind spot on the retina,
And echoless,
Which none the less can see and hear;

A being who leads a decent life, who lives, however,
Everything I do, and listens impassively
To all the mutterings of my conscience.

A being made of nothing, if that's possible,
Who does not feel my aches and pains,
Who does not weep when I weep,
Who does not laugh when I laugh,
And who does not blush when I commit some shameful act,
And who does not whine when my heart is wounded;
Who stays still and keeps his own counsel
But who seems to eternally say:
"I am here, indifferent to all".

Perhaps it is made of void as is the void,
But so big that Good and Evil together
Do not fill it.
Hatred dies of suffocation there
And the greatest love can never find a way in.

So take all from me: the meaning of these poems,
Not what one reads, but what comes through in spite of myself:
Take it, take it, you have nothing.
And wherever I go, in the whole universe,
I always meet, outside me as in me,
The unfillable void,
The unconquerable Nothing.

The Guru

This Guru watches too much TV,
He spits when he talks,
Likes the Lambada.

This Guru might kick you in the balls,
He tells crude jokes,
Treats people as objects.

This Guru used to "body-build".

This Guru sits you in a comfortable chair,
Lets you pee in his toilet,
Then calls you a bloody fool.

This Guru does not act like a Guru
- He is not acting at all.

(for Ramesh).

18/10/09

The Creativity of Impermanence.

Impermanence is not merely the doctrine that all that arises must pass away. It is the profound realisation that both the emptiness from which the world arises and the world itself are both impermanent states.

The emptiness is as impermanent as the existence it creates.
In the midst of emptiness we find a thing; in the midst of things we find nothing.

Emptiness and fullness are the breaths of existence.
They are the rise and fall of reality, the Father and Mother of every moment.

Things are neither trapped in Samsara nor lost in Nirvana. They are impermanent which means that they are not one or the other, but both: ‘form as emptiness, emptiness as form’ as Nagarjuna wrote.

Both Nirvana and Samsara are impermanent.

Existence is non-dual.

Everything that arises passes away into……this, this, this.

24/10/09

Gravel

Waiting for the bus,
I watched the tarmac
And listened to the cars.

I saw how the road
Pushed itself into my being.

I felt the thrill
Of a piece of gravel
Scratch my core.

6/10/09

Hard Work

It all seemed like such hard work,

I'd have to learn Dzogchen meditation in lofty monasteries
Practice yoga with recluses in hidden caves
Learn to eat meat again and not mind
Be kind to strangers
Do the 'course in miracles'
Visit all my favourite gurus
Learn to lucid dream
Enjoy my gruel
Become wise, compassionate and sexless.

I didn't know that a single breeze,
Is enough to blow it all away.

16/6/09

Welcome to Life

Life cannot be written about.

Words cut and cleave, chop and kill.

Now, there is only the mist falling over trees, the music on the radio,
the tingle of my fingers, my dry coffee mouth...

This is Life.

Always here, always new, always free.

14/6/09

Time

I pass through time like a dark ship passing through fog. No landmarks hove into view, no horizon cuts the grey weather. The stars have closed their eyes and the wind has held its breath. I am propelled forward unknown and unknowable, a mystery fleck, a jot of flotsam, a fragment of mammalian flesh, leaving nothing but the insubstantial froth of a short lived wake that merges into the murky ocean, a single seascape, in which all evidence that I ever lived is sure to drown.

26/4/09

Grace

Reading those words
Something inside me snapped like a twig.

Suddenly the veil evaporated
Revealing radiant life,
Naked and raw.

I became a child in a garden paradise
A happy animal merged with the deep silent Now.

Time crumbled and the flowers kissed eternal.

In love with everything
I laughed at the obvious,

Which for 29 years
Had been so immaculately clear
That I was blind to it.

Momentum

Everything is.

Yet everything strives.

Perfection is inherent in toil.


5/14/08

Once,

Bed-ridden in a fiery land

I dreamt a sacred nightmare,

And learnt of a terrible paradox:


‘That which we trust to be most real

Is but a faint and momentary echo

of a mystery too deep to see.’

4/1/09

Reflections of Nothing

Reflections of nothing

Must look like something

If the law of opposites is to be believed.


In which case I am always nowhere,

Yet I clothe myself in mountains and stars,


I am a desolate drunk, stubborn in self-loathing,

I am a smiling child, waiting for the next hee-hee-hee.

4/1/09

Intimacy

Something is given;

A gull, the waves, the taste of Coffee

And it is given fully.

In that moment you are treasure-bound,


Because you said ‘yes’,

And what’s more,

Because you didn’t.

4/1/09