Some poetry

[Individual]

Tell me if it's any good.

I sit down,
Closing my eyes,
Thinking deeply.

As my concentration develops,
My mind grows bright;
It bursts into flames.

The light agitates a thousand insects.
They fly towards it,
Buzzing around.

But my concentration remains firm.

They fall to the ground.
Now they are snakes.
The thousand snakes stand upright,
Ready to strike me.

I know all their names:
Hatred, anger, anxiety, fear,
Doubt, despair, deceit,
Greed, lust, and laziness.
All of their names are
Not worth repeating.

I maintain a good focus,
Being limitlessly patient,
Extending forgiveness,
Both inwards and outwards,
Seeing through it all,
While being unopposing.

I draw my sword,
And strike down the thousand snakes,
With a single blow.

Oh, it was a pleasant dream!

If you like it, maybe I will post more.

[Individual]

When I try to be funny,
Nobody gets it.
When I try to sound clever,
I look like an idiot.
When I look for a woman,
They find me disgusting.
When I look outside for a Buddha,
I see only monsters.

On other occasions:

I am being quite serious
And they find me hilarious.
I speak simply yet truthfully,
And they find it ingenious,
I have no interest in women,
And thus they adore me.
When I give up looking for happiness,
I have already found it.

I write poetry.
In my mind it's wondrous,
Yet when it comes out on paper,
It is garbage.

[Individual]

I receive an invitation to hell.
Beautiful calligraphy,
With gold lettering.
I graciously accept,
Knowing the consequences.
In order to study it,
Like army reconnaissance.

You are just a fool,
Merely my tool,
Failing in school,
Wrapped 'round my finger,
Like string 'round a spool!

Oh, I can see the wholesome,
Before the unwholesome,
Yet cannot always
Allow the wholesome to arise.
It would be nice
if the unwholesome never came to visit
Or if I could find a holy place
Where the unwholesome was disassociated.

Perhaps I must simply be
A homeless wanderer one day,
Wandering around,
Rambling madly!

Surrounded by nature,
With nothing, absolutely nothing,
Perhaps I could be free;
It's a romantic ignorance.

"Hello! Wisdom for food!"
What?
"Buy me a sandwich and I'll tell you something clever."
Get away from me, creep!

It wouldn't work.

And yet if I stood by the side of the road,
With lies about having children,
Some kind of disease,
Being a military veteran,
The dumb liberals and religious folk would eat it up
Like cake.

Like cake!

[Individual]

I look at the past,
like a man who remembers
his past life as a dog.
I look at the future,
like a child,
At the top of a rollercoaster.

I don't look at the present.
If I did, I wouldn't feel this way.

Instead, I drift along.
Like leaves in autumn wind,
Destined for a crisp brown death,
In the cold winter that follows.

[Individual]

When I'm feelin' good,
The sun shines bright,
When I'm feelin' down,
The skies are gray and blue,
And the rains come pourin' through.

I plant good seeds,
But can't enjoy the fruit.
Like shunning the sound of music,
While playin' the flute.
It's hard to not be happy,
With well-deserved delight,
For now, I smile like an idiot,
And dance like a monkey tonight.

[fragrant herbs]

i like your poetry.

[Individual]

As I play the guitar,
Reflecting on noble truths,
Each musical note is a moment;
Some of happiness,
Others of suffering.

Each note is a smile,
Or a tear;
A nice warm home,
Or a crumbling shanty;
Blissful, warm colors,
Rising like a steamy geyser,
Projecting rainbows across the turqoise sky,
Or a choking, dark grey cloud,
With black soot and death,
Which follows an erupting volcano,
Like an endless shadow.

In western music theory,
The Major follows the Minor,
The Minor follows the Major,
Major and Minor are the same,
Only differing in arrangement.

Life is like this:
Happiness follows sorrow,
Sorrow follows happiness,
Both are simply points of view,
States of mind,
Differing only in how the mind
perceives the sound;
Where it begins and ends differs,
But the moments are the same.

I wish I didn't have to play this music,
But could still hear it in unagitated silence;

Like dying, with the ground
pulled out from under your feet.
Falling and falling,
Spinning, twirling, confusedly,
To find myself reborn
in a Pure Land of Buddhas,
Of smiles and trees.

How selfish.

[fragrant herbs]

not selfish at all. beautifully written

[Individual]

This isn't poetry, but just as I was about to eat lunch, I had an idea for a nice photo. The other day, it was a sunny day in autumn (very rare weather) and the red, yellow, and green leaves of a nearby forest were glowing in the sunlight. I wanted to take a picture, but I came home and forgot to go back. By the time I remembered, it was sunset, so I missed the opportunity.

East Meets West



If I have any neat art to share, such as music (as I am a musician also), I'll share it here.

[fragrant herbs]

mountain dew with asian food? yuck. of course i went into a chinese restaurant in san francisco's china town and a friend tried to order a cola. the waitess made some type of comment in chinese and everyone laughed. no cola.

[Individual]

mountain dew with asian food? yuck. of course i went into a chinese restaurant in san francisco's china town and a friend tried to order a cola. the waitess made some type of comment in chinese and everyone laughed. no cola.

Actually it's not very Asian. Some kind of western stir-fry with enough salt to kill a fat man. I drank the water first and just a little mountain dew when the water was done. Originally I planned on just drinking water, but when I arranged a few objects around the plate for a photo, the mountain dew seemed an appropriate way to balance the fis sauce... and I ended up drinking it just because it was within arms' length. I could've gotten a few things out of the fridge, really.

[Individual]

To clarify, this is just a poem. I'm not actually a psychopath. I'm just capable of channeling one (metaphorically speaking).

The beginning is rather nasty, but if you read the rest, it gets better.

Slash and burn
Burn, burn every bridge
that you come across!
Burn the air that you breathe,
And the blood that boils!

Tear the raw flesh
From the skeleton
Ingesting the fresh meat
Drooling over its succulence.
Swallow the juicy connective tissue,
Choking as it slithers down,
Into acid mixed with bile and pus,
Oozing through a black snake,
Into an endless dark void.

Slash and burn
Burn, burn every bridge
that you come across!
Burn the air that you breathe,
And the blood-filled boils!

Carefully calculated
Rape and murder for lust,
For sport and curiosity,
and greatest of all,
for no particular reason!

All beings are less than insects,
Less than the organelles of a bacterium,
Mere objects, for my own pleasure,
My own sake; mine,
Hahahaha, mine,
preciously mine.
Let them all be gathered into a single heap,
A single pile of mutilated, mangled bodies,
Drowning the cosmos,
In forever-rising rivers of blood and semen;
This world, my world.
All mine and mine alone.

As I take my second bite,
I feel dissatisfied.
I cry, because I am all alone,
Alone in my ultimate loneliness,
My hunger exceeds the pretas.
Beings hate and fear me,
Or pretend I do not exist.
When I am gone,
The wise give me not a single thought,
Like a being who rejects another
In matters of love.
But whenever I arrive,
The wise publicly insult and shame me,
Like cruel parents,
Who tease their children in public,
Sharing their every intimate detail,
That the child would prefer be unspoken.

May all beings not fear this dark mind,
Or feel pity, or self-righteousness,
Or doubt and despair.
May Guan Yin's thousand hands,
Collect the infinite tears of the world,
And turn them into a warm heavenly rain,
Raining down happiness upon the world;
A downpour infused with sunlight,
Projecting rainbows across every sky,
In every realm, in every mind,
Until all the hells are empty,
The hells we create for ourselves.

[Individual]

It is like fireworks!
Like pop rocks and popcorn,
A thousand cap guns firing,
in harmonious discord.
Like bubbles at the bottom
of a boiling pot,
or in a can of soda,
The sound of music,
Traffic and crowded carnivals.

Like stormy rain drops,
Plucking the surface of a pond;
Lightning bolts,
Across ten hectares squared,
In an accelerated time-frame.
Crackling specks of flaming debris,
Whizzing through the air,
Like fireflies and fairies,
Above a smoky campfire.

[Individual]

A juicy worm, several inches thick,
Alongside various fluidous flesh bags,
Infected with viruses and bacteria,
Some pulsating, some not,
Wrapped in gorilla skin,
Which also holds a chalky stone,
Enclosing a pink-white sponge,
Connected to an electric eel lined with stones,
And yellow-pink-white coral reefs,
Floating in a red ocean.
A nose like a pig snout,
Mane like a bearded lion,
Teeth like a rabbit bred with a dog,
Making all kinds of odd noises.

"What are these disgusting things?"
"They are called hyoomans."
"Awful! I would rather be a dolphin!"

[Individual]

The cosmos is like a lotus flower,
With an infinite number of petals,
Which grow and wilt,
Like a geyser which starts and stops.
It spins around in circles,
At immeasurable speed,
And each petal rises and falls,
Interchangeably.

Look a little closer:
And there is no flower!
Only infinite specks of dust.
Dust within dust:
Galaxies within universes,
Which swirls in many directions,
And in so many colors.

Look a little closer:
There are beings!
Gods, demons, and humans,
Animals, ghosts, and monsters,
With many different forms and minds,
Some with bodies but no minds,
Some with minds but no bodies,
Many with both,
And some even with neither!

And look a little closer:
Within each being's mind,
One sees the whole lotus-flower,
Always present to every mind,
But rarely used or expressed;
Some call this Indra's jewel,
But in truth it belongs to no-one.

The Buddha sits atop this flower,
Smiling down on us all.

[Individual]

This story popped into my head at school today. I hope you like it.

Once, a deva in one of the upper heavens had a spontaneous realization of the nature of suffering, aspiring to be a bodhisattva. In that moment, he flew directly over to Mara and gave him the middle finger.

When the bodhisattva was reborn a human, Mara sent a small army, thinking the bodhisattva's mind would be easily dispatched. In some sense it was easily dispatched, but each time the bodhisattva realized his errors, and looked upwards, giving Mara the finger.

So, Mara sent a larger army, and eventually, the bodhisattva was overwhelmed and was reborn a hungry ghost. As a hungry ghost, the bodhisattva raised his middle finger as he became mentally and physically numb, falling into a stupor, and was reborn a monkey.

As a monkey, the bodhisattva raised both his middle fingers and danced all around happily. Mara inspired the monkey to hunt weaker animals for sport and in turn, inspired other animals to hunt the monkey for sport. With his last breath, the monkey raised his middle finger, being reborn in the cold hell.

As the bodhisattva sank into the cold blue depths, he held his middle finger high. But Mara continued to push him downwards, into the hot hell. As the bodhisattva sank into pools of lava, he continued to hold his middle finger high. With his head beneath the lava, his arm remained upwards, held high.

He reached the lowest realm, the Avici hell, still keeping his middle finger held up. Mara continued to push him, but there were no other realms in which to enter. So, after entering a stasis for a long time, he attained full buddhahood right there. His body exploded in a green light and, sitting at the very floor of Acivi, there appeared a fist, with the middle finger and thumb extended. The middle finger grew and grew, until it reached the highest heavens, and it became a magical beanstalk that anyone with a pure mind could grab onto, to climb to the higher realms. On his four other digits, from the thumb to the pinkie, were four inscriptions:

On the the thumb, "What lies beyond is the greatest joy"
On the index finger, "This joy is release"
On the ring finger, "This release is pure"
And the pinky, "This joyous release through purity is attained through practicing non-violence, both inwardly and outwardly."

Many hell-beings gathered on the palm of that hand and escaped. In the upper heavens, devas laughed incessantly, saying, "This is an insult Mara cannot recover from!"

[Individual]

More prose:

"Bang!" the man fires his gun, to start the race. I am born an infant.

I stand there at the starting line, for many years, bewildered, forgetting that I'm even in the race.

Somewhere around my mid-20s, I remember what I am doing.

"Oh! I'm in the race!" and start running to the finish line (towards Nirvana).

Mara stands on the side-lines, "Stop! Hey! Hey! Look over here! I have a cheeseburger!"

"Stop, look over here!" he holds up a television and an Xbox 360, with a library of games.

"Stop, stop, look over here!" there are several beautiful women and pornography. I keep running.

Although I admit, sometimes I do stop for Mara: for the women, and to discuss dharma, and make artwork. It's hard to get back into the race, but I always do and always will.

I keep running, running, running. And in the process, I lose myself, in a bad way. I run towards Nirvana and my spirit outpaces my body, and my body gets left behind. And I get bewildered again.

So, I have to pay attention, look back, "Oh, I'm too far ahead! My body is still back there!" and I have to re-trace my steps.

The race continues. I run with stubble on my face, because due to a lack of mindfulness, I wasn't able to shave for the past few days, which saves time but also hurts me, because if I am unshaven, then the judges of the race will deduct points from my final score.

Along with Mara, there are many people standing out in the crowd. But they aren't aware of the race anymore than an infant is aware of global geoeconomic politics!

Oddly, instead of cheering those who run, those on the side-lines cheer on those who actually are just standing still by the starting line: wearing robes, holding sutras, and discussing dharma with the evil one.

[Individual]

Nibbana has been called:
"A flame that is extinguished,"
But at best, this is a half-truth,
At worst, a vicious falsehood!

Nirvana is an eternal flame,
An eternal light,
Which can never be consumed;
It is inexhaustible,
Burning without fuel,
And giving off no smoke,
So it illuminates even more!

If all the fireworks of the world,
Were set up in one area,
And the fireworks' mortars were stuffed,
With all the world's gemstones,
And on the ground below,
Were all the world's laser lights,
Projecting across a black fog,
On a beautiful starry night,
And this glorious contraption
Were set off all at once:
It would pale in comparison,
To the light of Nirvana!

If a million "Big Bangs" occurred all at once,
And in each of these universes,
Was all the light of every star that might possibly exist,
Focused within a dot the size of a grain of rice,
And the light of these million worlds,
Were reflected to a spot the size of an atom:
It would pale in comparison,
To the glory of Nibbana!

[Individual]

Many others suffer from unhappiness;
I suffer because of joy.
Many others suffer from stupidity,
I suffer because of wisdom.
Many others suffer because of the physical;
I suffer because of the mental.
Many others are afraid of hell,
I am more afraid of heaven.
Many others seek morality,
I seek the Middle Way.

Bad karma is like a ball-and-chain,
But good karma is like a snare.
Bad karma weighs you down like a brick,
But with good karma you fly away,
Stupid but happy.

IS THAT BETTER?

[Individual]

I stand there, raking autumn leaves.
I should've raked them already,
But I thought,
"Why rake the leaves today,
When more will fall tomorrow?"
So I waited.

As I raked the leaves,
I reflected,
"These are not mine,
Nor are they separate,
They are impermanent,
And dissatisfactory;
they are simply leaves,
And nothing more."

As I worked,
I felt tightness in my abdomen.
The center of gravity,
Is strengthened by hard work;
Nothing magical about it.

My body ached,
So I twisted my hips,
Throwing punches and kicks,
Until I felt better,
Got the juices flowing.
I felt energy well up inside,
Like my soul could leap,
A thousand miles above the body.
I felt inclined to stop working,
And do martial arts in the forest,
But I saw through this delusion,
And kept working.

I see the Tao,
Not because of profound mystical insight,
Or the highest most supreme enlightenment,
But because I merely see a single way,
And no other way that leads to good places.

I humbly see not The Way,
Just a way and no other way,
A way! A way! A way!
Away! Away! Away!
Because all other roads lead to suffering.

So, I stopped raking leaves,
Only partially finished,
To come here and write this poem:
Because I am an idiot
Who is easily distracted by dreams,
And delighted by sharing
My dream-like mind with others.