The Present

moment stands at a distance Its reflection Coated in metallic waste unlight bounces repeatedly, But never pierces through f sweaty, twisted bed sheets esperate promises of change ng, piling onto one another, crunch of bone against bone, , collapsing inward to reveal flushed with the color of life, vibrating, the pleasant hum body syncing with the mind and the ever-shifting mood, ting with the tune of the day

Emily Epstein

INCURABLE (Lullaby for Ego)

Yeah I know, confusing isn’t it?

Some time ago you were there, And it was like that.

Then you were like that, over here, Just like this—

And what’s it like now?

Like a complaint from a TV commercial?

What happened to retirement!

‘Manage and slow

The spread, Best we can hope for.’

Eventual outcome, the only certainty.

All else is an answerless mist, unyielding fog.

Lifetimes of the mind’s blueprints, Cobwebs in a forest fire.

When is anything ever fully completed?

Rats of impermanence gnawing at the footings of each new construction

And stripping the wires off the engines themselves— Even the tenuous scaffolding riddled with rot.

Was there ever a final flag to drive into blowing sand? While titles and names, faces and achievements fall away, Faster than they arrived.

When has becoming ever led to Being?

The tongue never quite reaches the taste. The beauty beheld always abandons the eye. Experience never sticks and stays, Regardless of our clawing and grasping.

The molecules of the body vibrating quicker than thought.

Some galaxies moving away at the speed of light. Moving where? Away from what?

Silence and space between each instant, The very ground of every moment.

No need to birth your head above the horizon’s lip Of Unknowing and Stillness. A divine ether flows in and flows out— Breath, of course—but so much more than that!

When all the knots and bindings come loose, There remains the ceaseless ease of presence, Through the limitless peace of absence.

Brad Hunter

In a foggy grove

In a foggy grove of saplings

A young boy shivers. Alone, Wandering in reverie.

Time steps away from space.

Body begins to hum.

Gazing into the uncanny mist over the St. Lawrence river

He is startled, suddenly seeing himself recalling

This very moment far in the future.

The branches and air bear witness. And today, An elder looks at the back of his Spotted hand--

How like the veins of a fallen maple leaf.

As he rubs palms together.

Moist and smooth and slippery,

There appears the shiny bark of saplings , Decades upstream, By a river, Left long ago.

He traces the rings of time

Circling the vast cove of the breast.

The temporary harbor of a timeless heart.

And I remember a young boy

Remembering me

Remembering him.

Brad Hunter

One day you might find

That you have been throwing your lif

Against some invisible wall

Longer than you can remember.

On that day a crack may appear in th You never knew existed.

Because you’ve stopped looking, it co And just below the crack you might n

In this nonexistent wall,

And you realize there is a nonexisten In this wall that never was. This handle beckons for a turning, And this time you approach, As one approaches things that may n

With a curiosity, trust and gentleness you’ve never known, And you turn with a turning borne of endless endurance

And the unshakable focus of a child in rapture.

Then you realize that it is not you turning, But you that is turned.

For an instant you recognize you have not thrown yourself against anything And perhaps for the first moment of your life

You have truly rested in your own presence. You find yourself bathed in an unspeakable radiance and smile, While the world opens in wide grin and whispers-Welcome Home.

Brad Hunter

Empty Theatre

On the stage of the ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows, All the main characters have killed themselves off.

The audience leaves in disgust and demands a refund!

The stage and seats now empty, a certain grief hangs in the curtains

And the stillness of the air.

The theatre itself slips into the void of Neither host nor guest. Yes, the show will still go on--

The foolish comedies, the tragedies, the romances-All the trauma and drama. But we already know the ending.

After all, who wrote the script?

Seems like another realm. I was still young and the old man Was barely 50, When I said excitedly

‘I slipped on the razor’s edge And cut my face off!’ And yet, Ever since that long night Of Solitary Brightness, I still tend to get real nervous around All nouns and names and pronouns!

Further along

Sid’s road less traveled

Still, I ran to the river and chopped off my hair, Vowed never again to succumb to that pit viper’s snare. By donning a robe of ocre, I swore, To set foot in Mara’s house no more.

Six years on the path, I learned to breathe deeply, No more sex, drugs or rock and roll, in a manner of speaking.

Yoga and zen, it all merged in my mind, But I knew in my heart there was still more to find.

Mangos are tasty, but hurt when they fall, So I searched through the trees and examined them all.

That ficus was big and tall and round, So I pledged not to arise til my mind fully unwound. Some presume that it took me a full 49 days, But in just one night my mind broke through the haze.

Mara tested me with thoughts of great pleasure and pain, Seeking to prevent the great ‘wakening that came. Min’ui Maitri

I had sorted it out, all that delusion and greed, No self was left, all impermanent, indeed! But those seven weeks, in Bodh Gaya, I stayed. I had found my Nirvana, no longer dismayed. Thus began my 45 year-long mission, Teaching liberation and peace to all who would listen. True self, is no self, let go of it all, Compassion is present in both big and small. Aged 80, it seems is a good round number. Afterall, my two buddies had gone before me to slumber. This life was my last, the war had been won, My Samsara ended with my last setting sun.

Mutta

So freed! So thoroughly freed am I! — from three crooked things set free: from mortar, pestle, & crooked old husband. Having uprooted the craving that leads to becoming, I'm set free from aging & death.

Therigatha, Chapter 1, Verse 11 https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thig/thig.01.00x.than.html#sutta-11

Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī

Min’ui Maitri

Awakened! Hero! Homage to you, highest of all beings— you who’ve released me and many other people from suffering!

I’ve comprehended all stress, dried up craving, the cause, developed the eightfold path,1 and touched cessation.

Before I was mother, son, father, brother, grandmother.

Not knowing things as they were, I wandered on without respite. But now that I’ve seen the Blessed One, this is my last body-heap. Birth & wandering-on are totally ended. There is now no further becoming.

I see the disciples gathered, their persistence aroused, resolute, constant in strong exertion: This is the worship of the Buddhas. Truly for the benefit of the many did Māyā give birth to Gotama, thrusting away the mass of pain of those mired in illness & death.

Therigatha, Chapter 6, Verse 6 (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Thig/thig6_6.html)

Through many a birth in samsara have I wandered in vain, seeking the builder of this house (of life).

Repeated birth is indeed suffering! O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving.

Dhammapada 153-4

To cease from evil, To do what is good. To cleanse one's mind:

This is the advice of all the Buddhas.

Without a mouth

I bite into the blueness of a seed syllable. The eyes explode into gravity where shapes are mythical clouds that have one face of emptiness. With no line the sea and the sky are one. The light is in front of the mirror combing darkness strand by strand. On each dial of a universe a lotus emerges. Identical yet separate. Iris. Eyeballs. Eye lashes. Who is this looking at me ?