adivbuddha

Salt and pepper shake

Side by side, the spice of life

Who, then, will taste death?

Amber evening

Noon’s fossil

Spawn of yesterdays

III

Deepest sleep

The color of ripening mango

Housing a pit of sweet dreams

Father forgive me

I cannot love you

We are the same man

Twelve notes

Just as disciples

Sing the song supreme

Among the people

There are no fools

But folly between them

VII

The stillest waters

Are made of glass

With fiery origins

VIII

Come in from the cold

I will be your blanket

Your warmth, shelter.

I am no saint.

Lucky for you

Devils are a myth.

Pick your poisons.

And then, abandon them,

Laughing loudly.

He was a man. He once felt fulfilled, or did not know that he was unfulfilled. He sought truth. Around every corner, in every person’s words, the individual leaf, of an individual tree. He tried to see the big picture, with the little picture in mind, or vice versa. He was confused. Confused because he knew it all, everything he would ever need to know. Truth. Yet he searched for it. Truth was not what he was looking for, but that is what he called it. Truth. He was really searching for proof of what he new. He wanted to see truth, to hold it in the palms of his hands like a newborn baby. He wanted to hold it up over his head, and say to the others “Look what I have begotten.” But he couldn’t hold truth. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t begin to touch it. The more he desired it, the further out of his heart he pushed it. Truth.

He went to an elder, and asked to have truth revealed to him. The elder said “My son, you are of two minds, playing peek a boo. The adult mind playing with the child mind. Remove your hands from your own eyes, and see for yourself.” First he was a man, and then he was a child and a man. No closer had he come to truth, and now he had to baby-sit his thoughts. He wished for the ability to see truth, and so, the next day, he arose with the sun and morning birds and the dew and the sounds. The senses were there, but they were empty. The sun was not beautiful today. The birds sang, but it was not lovely. This was the first day. On the first day, he merely observed his surroundings, closing his ear, not the ear of simple listening, but the ear of other’s opinions. He had no mouth on the first day. Just eyes to see, and not even ears to hear what he saw, only ears to listen to his own heart. On the second day, he had no eyes, no mouth, only ears. Ears for hearing what others say, ears for hearing what he had observed through sight, just the day before. He listened and began to paint pictures on the insides of his eyelids. His mind was no longer amenable to words, and he had no visual information, so he made up his own pictures, painting with his heart-blood images upon his eyelid interiors, inspired by sound that wasn’t beautiful, nor was it angry, nor was it ugly. It was just sound: vibrations moving at a speed such that he could feel them in harmony with his ear. This vibratory harmony produced an orchestra of sounds. The breeze played a light, airy theme. He painted a picture of a sky. And in that vast sky, he painted first, himself, in the sky, but the image moved, and changed into a bird. His arms became wings, and the sound of the wind kept him afloat until the wind quieted and he came to rest on a tree.

Up in the tree, he looked down, and there he painted a ground upon the insides of his eyelids. The ground was grass with a dandelion there and over there, and below. Near one dandelion, he painted a man facing away from the tree. He focused on the back of the seated man, and the wind began to pick up, and he raised his wings and gave them a flap. He leapt up, off the high branch and bent his beak forward, and he soared down at the man, who could not see the bird. The man was looking at a dandelion, and still the bird picked up speed. The wind was getting faster and louder in the ear, and the paintings on his eyelids were moving rapidly, and there was nervousness, and the man on the ground was nervous but he didn’t… and the bird plunged into the man’s back and became a man again, screaming out in pain, and the paintings melted. There were tears in his eyes, but he rubbed his eyes, and there were no eyes. There was not even a place on his face for eyes. It was just a smooth surface, moist with dew.

He lay on the ground screaming. He felt the vibration of his throat and mouth, and he felt the air passing out over his tongue. But there was no sound. He put his hands over his ears, but there was nothing there, except a smooth surface. He did not know whether he was screaming or not, but he slowly felt the breath leave his body, and his lungs felt empty, but instead of gasping for air, he pushed out more air, and soon it felt as though the air was leaving on it’s own. He struggled to breathe, but he couldn’t. He began to panic, and pictures flooded the inside of the smooth surface, where once his eyelids dwelt on his face, and the pictures swelled and subsided from one, to the next, to the next. He could see pictures but he wasn’t painting, and he had no time to think about who was painting, or where his breath had gone. He tried to breathe again, but his nose, he couldn’t feel his nose, and he visualized a nose, and it was plugged up, and he began kicking, his mouth wet, and there was no air in his lungs, and he was aware of a droning, hollow, deep and distant rhythm. It was a heartbeat. It was slowing. His mouth was open and he felt as though he was drowning, but not dying.

He was under water; he saw the image of an ocean, a deep dark ocean floor. He was tied there. He couldn’t escape. There was a pressure bearing down on him, and he felt as if his head would implode, and he drowned on and could not scream. And in an instant, he came to a realization, he had found truth, it was a miracle. His eyelids were shut, and he began to feel a penetrating, painful light over his face. It burned his eyes and he saw white. He felt a bitter cold and began to shiver. He plunged into a pool of cold air and began to drown again, this time, he gagged and threw up and air forced itself into his lungs to become breath. He could hear, but the peaceful sound of the deep droning rhythm had ceased, and the silence was shattered by a piercing shriek louder than anything he had heard before. He was terrified and let out a scream. He was crying. He tried to move, but was suspended in air by his ankles, and everywhere was white, and a thin bright line ran across his visual periphery, and grew in width, upwards and downwards, ever expanding, his eyes paining in the ominous glow, but slowly readjusting. His vision was blurry, and he began to see sheets of white, and another color now, it was blue. He thought of the sky, but this was slowly becoming less like the sky the more he looked. He was being moved around in all directions, and could not focus on any of the sheets until he came to rest against a wet mound. And as he put his ear upon the ground, he could hear a rhythm being played just beneath the ground, and this soothed him. He was no longer screaming, and he had tears on his cheeks, but he was calm, and his eyes were closed, and he knew he had found truth. But whom could he tell, and how could he tell it?