a poem in progress…

This is a 21 part poem that is currently 38 percent finished… I thought that posting it might inspire me to finish it… let me know your thoughts. It’s based on a short text by Terton Padgyal Lingpa, called ‘21 Encouragements to Be Earnest’. I feel that some parts need filling out. Which parts seems complete and which parts seem to need some more work?

-Erick

“When you train in experiencing all appearances

as illusions devoid of reality,

If you do not realize that appearances

are the mind, and that all is primordial purity,

How can you express this with conventional words?”

-Terton Padgyal Lingpa

HOMAGE TO ONE’S ONE TRUE FACE,

(your own best friend)…

1.

I wander along the streets, more rain than

concrete, and befriend each growling dog

with a smile which shoots up from my heart.

Green Tara guides the way, past the closed

shop doors perfect in their garage-like equipoise.

At present I hold nothing in my hands

so I don’t have much to offer you

except these mountains of flowers

I’m visualizing right now above me.

There’s more where those came from,

so I suppose I have enough.

The Inner Guide is like a flashlight

in this current pitch-black maze

with batteries that keep going and going.

You’re like a young boy with the

most angelic face

floating on a lake

of goat-milk mixed with sugar.

You seem to me like a power-plant of

purity, that fortifies my natural stream of

goodness.

I hope we all find the right road-signs.

Mind-strength (sems shugs, “enthusiasm”)

is an essential component of the way

to get to the way of the Way of Abiding (gnas tsul).

Numbers are arbitrary, but I still love

them all day long. Learn how to

properly turn on your

flashlight.

2.

You already know that you’re asleep

all the time, so let’s learn how to wake up.

You’re Original Face doesn’t need make-up, really,

but she appreciates it. There’s a proper way

to put it on.

You have to know where to find the nice kind.

When you apply it, do it gently and with love,

like an art-form.

When you’ve finished application,

unfasten the screws on your forehead

and make like a porcelain bathtub.

We’ve got to be the best; we’ve got to

become the best that we actually are.

My watch tells all three times.

Original Face has always been pretty,

but now she’s caught your attention.

There’s light-houses in her eyes.

They tell you better than a map.

I’m glad that heaven is even in my

dirty concrete floor. The Isle of Gold

ain’t no vacation spot –

it’s a year round cruise

with a non-stop celebration of timelessness

right on deck.

Original Face builds up pressure

and lets loose like an ongoing pinata burst

streaming forth from the peak of Mt. Kailash.

I never learned how to put on make-up

but everyone discovers their own method of

adornment.

3.

The other day I walked right past

a horse on the street, and didn’t notice him.

What the hell?

He was sick, and wandering. Why didn’t anyone help him?

I didn’t even see him.

Did he learn how to tame himself?

Still,

he definitely can do some things I can’t.

Real freedom

must be better than Kyoto, Portland, and Kathmandu combined. Oh, it’s got to be, of course.

Times infinite.

There’s always that uncomfortable feeling

lurking right underneath the surface.

No one likes it, be we all know about it.

Not to mention the real hard pain.

Medicine is available on the market, but

you’ve got to be a smart consumer. Some of those will make you worse… I can promise you.

Even sick horses have qualities to admire.

Original Face knows how to operate

all the right electronics

and brings us to our destination.

Thank you for boarding your precious body,

pretty as a penny made of pearl.

Gigantic straws lower themselves

to help you suck out the essence. You might

as well do it now. These flights are

hard to come by. Have you seen the rates these

days? This is like a concreted

drop of preciousness.

4.

It’s hard to light a match in the wind –

That Difficulty: that sums up how I feel

sometimes. I know you feel that way too.

Sometimes you’re the match, and I’m the wind, sometimes I’m the wind

and you’re the match.

Impermanence has an expedited service

these days. Joyful perseverance needs a

forceful tone, like a deep pumping base that gets you going.

Look straight

ahead — the other shore is definitely there.

Who needs all this STUFF?

I want to collect really extraordinary things.

5.

There’s varying degrees of energy

–let’s call them gross and subtle–

all dancing along a bigger spectrum.

The farmer knows what he’s planting with

an exactitude of certainty. I want to be

like that, with my actions. EVERY THOUGHT IS A

SEED.

Qualites, they do wax and wax;

Insights, they do drip;

From merit’s jar they fill the mind

and form a lovely ship.

Don’t forget that seeds are seeds

A good farmer knows his needs.

6.

Happiness looks boring to most people.

Suffering seems like a big party.

There’s got to be something wrong w/ our discernment.

I made love with a beautiful girl yesterday.

I was the form of air and space

And she was a fire, blooming forth into flame,

ready to ignite –

I was just the right space.

Her colors, blue and orange and red

are engraved on my retina.

That kind of thing

can to be hard to shake off your mind.

7.

It’s funny how it all comes down to

your attitude. everylivingbeingprecious

everyoneanopportunity

… I’m sticking the head of my ego in the sand

and admitting that

everyone’s the same as me.

8.

bad habits are like the most sticky kind of

invisible substance out there. It feels like

there’s black snakes of strange tendencies wrapped

up in loops

upon loops

in my stomach. It feels like

the oozy residue of stupid actions,

thoughtless words, careless impulses <<<

it feels like it’s so thick it’s taking over.

I want to be rid of all this now.

I know I can do it with some help.

The Timeless Friend acts as my witness. Thank you.

I come clean with all my bad actions

I vow to do my best never to repeat them

And I am a vessel, a jug, ready for the

steeping, ready for the flooding

with that sweet old

nectar of deathless purity juice

….

oh

my atoms are shiny
AH

the wheel of time spins on the black market.

1. I would walk into the gates of the gompa

at the latest moment, right before the gates

were closed, tired from a long day of being

a socialite in Boudha, roaming the restaurants,

looking with French ex-aghoris at the life-stories of eccentric Tibetan

saints reknowned for their sexual exploits and

magical powers, maybe becoming a little bit like

those anti-heroes as my life turned clockwise, swept

up in the rotational currents of the Great Stupa,

perhaps being swirled into transmogrifying into some different

sort of creature, the type of man with a

penchant for everything, a man with a palpable

fire of forty different facets burning inside his heart and other chakras, with the kind of flame

that works like a magnet for strangeness –

a superconductor for auspicious connection.

:::perhaps I was already like that:

but those currents that took me for that ride

would land me weary into those

gompa gates.

2.

On His Holiness’ birthday

at the gompa

I was asked to sit at the head of the table.

The soda poured unceasingly. The feast was

one hard on my stomach — every variety

of Pringles, matched w/ t’hugpa, rice and

hardy Tibetan rebel food. These monks were

Golokpas — “rebels” — from Golok. Their language

made almost no sense. They had so much

warmth, so much hospitality, so much joking,

so much light. An old monk from a story-book

sat close to me, with a classic beard like a soft wizard, and

sparkles in his eyes. He’d done 12 years of

solitary retreat. On a large TV the well-loved forty

little monks watched blaring music videos

of Amdo singers, who sang pop songs in

warbly voices about their root lamas, while

psychedelic visuals glowed around their

heads, and

heads, and

beatific images of buddhas

flashed on the screen. The monks and a few

laymen dressed in chubas and shepherd-minstrel garb

kept talking in their impossible dialect.

“This ain’t no Lhasa talk, boy.”

3.

The young monks I taught were

the closest things to throngs of little male

angels I’d ever encountered. Mostly Nepalis

from the Tibetan-like tribes of Nepal –  Tamangs, Sherpas –

they glowed like copper-colored cherubs of wonder ,

made even warmer by their maroon gowns

which seemed jut a little bit too big for them, like so many young monks

–priests at the age of 6, they have all the innocence that a

good monk needs.

In the morning these darting flames of smiling

copper would shout their sutras right outside my room

rising me up early .

And as I came out from my room, they would

look at me, maybe stopping recitations even for a second or so

– and smile. It seemed like the boys saw their recitations like a

sport, the kind of energetic morning ritual

that can get your blood flowing,

some good competitive holy-words-shouting

tunefully yelling the words of the Victorious One

seeing who could be the loudest

the fastest

or the most rhythmic.

Darjeeling, Gorkhaland, India

Please Pray for Lama Legden

Please include Lama Legden, the brother of Khentrul Lodro Thaye Rinpoche, in your prayers. He is very ill. See below. Khentrul Rinpoche requested the following prayer, the Barchhay Lamsel:   DU SUM SANG GYAY GU RU RIN PO CHHE NGO DRUB KUN DAG DE WA CHHEN POI ZHAB BAR CHAY KUN SEL DUD DUL DRAG PO TSAL SOL WA DEB SO JIN GYIY LAB TU SOL CHI NANG SANG WAI BAR CHAY ZHI WA DANG SAM PA LHUN GYIY DRUB PAR JIN GYIY LOB   OM AH HUNG BENZRA GURU PAYMA SIDDHI HUNG (off the cuff translation:   Buddha of the Three Times, Guru Rinpoche: Lord of All Spiritual Accomplishments, Sovereign of Great Bliss: Dispeller of All Obstacles, Dynamic and Wrathful Tamers of Maras: I pray to you — bestow your blessings! Pacify outer, inner, and secret obstacles, And grant your blessings that our wishes may be spontaneously accomplished!   OM AH HUNG BENZRA GURU PAYMA SIDDHI HUNG)     Of course any prayers from any religious tradition are helpful!!!!

 

From: Susan <louisianaise@gmail.com>
Subject: Katog Choling Lama Legden
To: katogcholing@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, August 28, 2008, 3:22 PM

Hi Everyone,

 

Rinpoche’s brother, Lama Legden is seriously ill. He is having a seven hour surgery later today, and Rinpoche is requesting prayers, especially Barchad Lamsel.

 

He will be in surgery during our meditation tonight, so we will probably be saying prayers for him in addition to prayers to avert Gustav.

 

Hope you can attend,

 

Susan__._,_.___

 

i almost forgot about this one

1.

What is that

you are withholding

from yourself and why is it that this

withholding is so persistent

and evasive and

how does this withholding

de-illuminate itself with

such skill

like insects hiding in moss

like mucus hiding in a nasal passage

like a fracture hiding in a spine

and while they do it

laughing all the time

2.

What is fucked up?

3.

What is perfect?

and totally useful

and practical

in the way that it has

shown itself to be

constructive and not

learning towards stress

not inclined towards anxiety

not bending towards a crumbling motion

and how does that operate

and adjust itself?

so what is perfect: how

can you find the things that make

you relax

relax into seeking perfection

which is itself a close cousin

of relaxation

AH: