THE SHOWROOM

Just as a doorman beckons to the passer-by

Inviting him to view the naked ladies,

As a showroom displays the latest models

And a piece of cheese leads the mouse to his certain death

So this glittering bait leads us to a momentary contentment.

Denial of the manifest existence is a further blasphemy

As blasphemous as a shotgun marriage to it.

The intricacy of thought patterns

Taken as real

Are ever more subtle.

 Hook, line and sinker come to mind.

Where does the poor me fit into all this?

Where can the ‘I’ take a rest?

Whose theory or practice will provide liberation from attachment?

A small voice whispers the timeless message

“There is no way out,

There is no ‘I’”

When the cupboard is completely bare

When even the dogs have given up sniffing around

A feast is laid.

Clean Sweep

This morning he awoke with the words 'swept clean'.

Life Off The Wheel

Whether I accept or not makes no difference to what is.

THE RELUCTANT WARRIOR

Encased in a suit of armour

Strapped to a warhorse

He charges into battle.

He doesn’t want to be a soldier

He can’t ride a horse.

If this is what is written

There are only two choices:

Grab the reins for dear life,

Aim the lance with measured accuracy 

Or release the reins

And jettison the weapon.

In both cases he is likely to lose his head,

Unless he awakens.

In that state there never was a head.

Songs of Praise

When the 'me' is here I am a student. When absent there is no student and no master. Yet a flavour of gratitude and devotion lingers.

 He is coincidentally named after the rudraksha tree whose seeds are used for making malas.

Queen of Peace

Princess Dyhana

Cat Burglar

Another thief caught red handed: "How am I doing on the path?"

On looking out to sea

How could this be your face

Your eyes, your ears?

Your breath, your palms

Your speech, your laugh?

For that matter

How could you lay claim to all you see?

Every scrap you label as yours

is someone else's.

What a cat burglar this mind is.

See how he enters from the roof,

invades the floors below

and blocks all exits.

If none of this is yours,

Let him have what he wants.

He is only stealing stolen property.

Gratitude is too small a word for this.

The Sweetest Flag

Yellow for caution

Red for Stop

Black for mourning

White; the universal solvent

Paint Stripper

"The spiritual journey," says Thomas Keating, "is not a career or success story. It is a series of  humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound."

Colleen Loehr  comments:
 "The world stood on its head.  For decades I had been seeking accumulation and self-enhancement when in fact all along the deeper longing was for the very opposite: diminution of that heavy burden of an imaginary ego-self ."


With thanks to:  http://emersonandtolle.blogspot.com/

FOREST LIFE

Not a forest leaf shimmers without the grace of The Ancestor.

 The wild boar can grunt all they like,

 Yet even that is divine music played on cracked instruments.

 The whining orchestra of this world is in another part of the forest.

 Here there is no resistance.

 Just home.

 While all around are yelping for home.

It could never be better than this and this and this, unless we think it.

 When thought colours the picture, the painting is spoilt.

 O man if only you knew how to be truly lazy.

Odyssey

I am at my most dangerous, and most vulnerable, when I think I know.

The school of soft knocks

In the boarding school of Self-Realisation the day starts with Dis-Assembly. The pupils have to answer to 'present 'or 'not present'. Only those who affirm to both are admitted to classes. The rest go to class as usual.