Authenticity

AUTHENTICITY

Test every word you say so that its validity is proven in your own being.
This is the timeless brief;
To sing your heart's song
Straight out into the void from which it came

Cleverness and artifice are for others

For you there are no options but to growl your growl
To let the hammer fall where it must;
On what it must.
Be gentle as mist or thunderous as avalanche,
Whichever is summoned.

There's little point in holding back
When the ground you traverse is the ground you stand on.

TOY DONKEY

Precious few question

What they are doing in this rubbery sack

With nine holes.

On the other hand

Some spend a lifetime

Investigating this puzzle

Or worshiping it.

Most ignore the inquiry

Seemingly content

To let the toy donkey trot down the hill

Powered solely by gravity.

Whether either approach has any intrinsic merit

Is certainly open to question.

The seekers who claim to be finders

End up living step for step

Like those who never sought.

 - Rudra Nua

ARIA

Idée Fixe

Please don't look to me for good news,

Please don't expect bad news either.

Equanimity can be a rare commodity

But even that could be construed as an idėe fixe.

There comes a time when you are truly careless.

I can assure you a few surprises might come your way then. 

 -Rudra Nua

Aria

When the heart is signing its aria,

The world is quiet

FROG

FROG

Life with God,

Or without God,

Is all the same to a frog

Pity the poor mental gymnast;

He has overfilled his tank

And fuel has spilled all over the road.

~Rudra Nua

FLOWER OR FLY

FLOWER OR FLY

The pilgrim rests his staff and tears of frustration soak the ground.

He backed lame horses and fished without hooks.

All trust in trodden paths had long evaporated and

All hope for preferred states were left behind.

From this abandonment

A sapling appeared,

A fledgling peaked from the nest.

To flower or fly is at the whim of destiny

Not in his jurisdiction.

~ Rudra Nua

FREEDOM TANGO

FREEDOM TANGO

Salt doll, rope snake, duck rabbit

Hoary old chestnuts

To ask me who sees this life as solid.

In the fairground house of horrors

The floor starts to quiver.

The dear friends lose their lives.

Relationships form and bust.

The hungry lion of impermanence stalks the bush.

The carpet is whipped out from under the feet.

Two ways are open;

The well trod path of believing it all or

The freedom tango of seeing the false for the false,

The true for the true,

GALLERY OF GHOSTS

Very few of us write on a blank page,

Or eat off an empty plate.

Try not to think and you are thinking

Ignore the moment and you dream.

Rudra adapted many a strategy over the years to achieve emptiness.

He thought he had identified the enemy and began to encircle it.

A full frontal attack was followed by the infiltration of undercover agents.

Locking horns prolongs the conflict.

Strategic retreat earns respite.

But he was not looking for either of these. 

Sixty years passed before he realised he was in a gallery of ghosts. 

-Rudra Nua

Non-Duality for golfers:

'Every hole a hole in one.'

I confess I truly know nothing.
The appearance is a bafflement
The body equally so
And please dont start on the mind.

Slipping through these immense waters, nothing stirs.

Once I was surrounded with barriers,
Problems followed hot on each other's heels.
But what can be left when there is no lucky winner, no lucky loser?

-Rudra Nua

TRACES

How could you

Tread in yesterday's footprint

Inhabit the space you just left

Replicate the person that stepped out of the moment just gone?

The carpet rolls up behind you

There is just the right amount of carpet where you stand.

Tent pegs will not penetrate rock

Ideal ground is right beneath you.

I once saw a fozen river

But even that thawed in the spring

Why flog a dead horse?

Leave not a trace of your existence.

-Rudra Nua

THE END OF THE LINE

'Are we there yet?'

'There' will never be here.

"Is this really it?"

Yes, this really is it.

"Will everything fall into place

When I reach my destination?"

Everything is in place.

You will never reach your destination.

There will never be an end of the line.

How could there be a beginning or an end

When there is no line?

-Rudra Nua

RAIN


Persistent rain thrums outside my window,
What delicious music. 
So much so that I can't tell the difference between waking and sleeping.
Yet an acutely sensitive awareness and a body lie in a warm bed.
Thoughts are extruded in word form and land on a page.


What does he know?
What knows him?
Ah, the sheer impenetrable mystery of it.


The jockey stays loyal to the horse,
The horse to the jockey.
As they round the bend
Both vanish like exhausted smoke.


What is left cannot be discussed.

PIMP MY PUP

Why bother tinkering with the diet,

Upgrading the kennel, 

Improving  the attitude, 

Preening the coat, 

Until the nature of the dog is known.

Pimp my pup is fine for some

But one day that pup will roar.

HARBOUR WAVE

The tsunami doesn’t stop to ask people

About their beliefs.

Neither does the mountain stream quiz the rocks

On their opinions,

On its way to the sea.

To be as hollow as we can

Signifies least resistance to the waves of life.

Be slippery, be pliant

That way the path is easy.

Every last morsel can only be devoured,

Or it has a habit of devouring you.

STAPLE DIET

Fatigue for breakfast

Judgement for lunch

Banter for afternoon tea

Ill humour for dinner

Late at night

He breaks out of his shell

All night long

All night long

He sings the praises of life eternal.

His teacher generously relaxed the baggage restrictions so that he could take the weight of the world on board. Mysteriously it became as light as a feather.

Elegance

Himself

The unexpected happens moment to moment, the expected is a mere colouration of the mind.

The Curtain

Trails

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

Stories

We all have our story, but in most cases our story has us.

It is so hands off that there are no hands.

I know most when I know nothing.

Clarity and confusion row the same boat but the sail does all the work.

The One keeps whispering to me 'throw in the towel’ but donkey wants his carrot.

Slip the moorings before you slip the moorings.

 This is the big dipper, always unknown and unpredictable, by its nature outside the bounds of any approach.

To set it in words is only a tease and a bind. Yet when it needs to be spoken it stammers, stammers in joy.