Rainbow-splashed syllables echo-merge
from the mouth of a boundless heart-cave:
a bell in the belly of a yogi there rings.
Do you think it's beautiful?
Hedonistic slob!
Do you think it's difficult?
Dualistic nut!
Do dream-tears rain from the cumulus
bursts of your secretly laughing galaxy-eye?
It's like that-an old punch line suddenly
erupting in rainbows.
* A reference to "The Tantra of the Inconceivable
Secret of Ali Kali"
El Tesoro is empty
of all but ghosts and yogis,
redbirds chattering spring mantras,
bluebonnets taking a peak,
wasps lost in screen windows,
important ant kingdoms by
the millions, coming and going.
All moments we hear the flow—
mingling with breezy sun-naps,
hunched over porridge and fruits,
hanging from a cushion, or cliff—
invisible river luminous,
beyond tangles of trees.
Lama pulls us single file—
branches piled like gnawed bones,
edible fungi flesh feasts,
leafy smells like hanging tree
breath, old paths that swerve, dying
or finding sanctuary.
River’s waiting is pilgrim’s
arriving, the same stream, woods
part at its seams, big wide dream
that is perfect—we’ve all been
soaking wet, all along
luminous.
At El Tesoro
new constellations arise,
sailors on rough seas
know which way is which.
Big treasure sky
maps are simple - the bigger
your heart the deeper
its crisp blue miles.
When the warm wind dies,
ships creak on long still waters,
Lama's six syllables
fill our sails to burst -
Scraping its belly on jags and peaks,
Ignoring lakes and desolations,
The iron bird carries us over—
Mercenary of thin elevations.
Walkers of the long hollow should pack their napped
dreams with fruits and useful worshipping tools, amen-
ities like matches and memories of children, smile
and write like tigers scraping final flesh from thigh bones.
Milarepa ate nothing but nettles and turned green
whatever sprouted among cold stones and clouds,
years of purity at crisp, quiet altitudes,
a callused ass that was its own cushion.
When herders and traders forgot the mountain yogi naked
songs like luminescent pearl-streams trickled from tasted
but never seen glaciers washing out the darkness, washing
out the forms, washing out the ears of the old-born and naked
herding lust,
trading sicknesses,
in the hollow valleys.
Poems and other nourishments like morning’s dew
seem to bloom among the crag and bramble thorns, pick
these as the monk minds the garden like Jetsun Mila
gathering nettles ‘til the Spring sun came melting.
He’ll never leave you alone by
morning whatever mellow billows
of relief have swept the mind are swept
away by the monkey butler who
dozing didn’t notice your dreams
puddling now he is on it quickly
no mopping a well trained primate-mind
the sweat on your pillow savor its
trace like heart dew, don’t go looking
for rest don’t go hoping for rainbows
don’t go hopping from job to lover
monkey’s a quick almost omnipresent
way to beat a monkey is let
the poor guy perform buy a ticket
watch him wind down with attention
he can’t scratch bite or break—love him
like the Buddha sitting quietly
while the monkey offered him honey.
In the world of concepts
this land is Tibet—wide plateau
of crystal stream-flows kept
by restful dragons of Dharma.
In the ultimate view
there is one place—light mirror
of mind beams palaces of sound,
matter, and the bliss of diamond rain
shatters echo-dreams of glass.
Until I awaken
to this pure view
I invoke in heart-mind the realm of rain-
bows and peaks, Motherland of Amrita.
Rinpoche, like a howling thunder train
your roar of compassion broke my house to bits,
entire rooms splintered from their dream of space,
trustworthy appliances sprawled like toppled monuments,
no walls—and how brisk! What naked breeze streams my face!
Rinpoche, flush with dreams I hit the road,
looping striped highways in circular commutes,
exit after exit arising and melting…
Phit! Phit! Phit! Phit! Four honed arrows--your skillful means--
pierce all inflations; how bizarre, to use my legs for once!
Rinpoche, as a last straw my body seemed firm,
the hum of organs in their heart-thumped orchestra,
the joy of breasts in a hundred earthy tones, ho!
Your blades of prajna hacked me like a wild butcher,
How light my trot without that lumpish bag of bones!
Rinpoche, your sun of wisdom begins the melt,
already parts of me flow like a buoyant stream,
happily freed from their glaciers of clinging,
yet how long the journey to the sea, how many
swift rumbling turns and dark-mouthed forests to beat!
Rinpoche, if, on my journey, I should freeze or meet
a deadening jam, may your Sun of Wisdom evaporate
my mind-stream to the sky of dharmakaya, where,
like a cloud, it manifests Buddha-forms, washing
lost mother beings in a soft rain of your blessings.
Spread on a bed of fire-tops,
catching my mountain breath
in gasps of wild perfume
as fickle and pulsing as a mustang,
I catch whisper in the valleys—a voice
only foreign, desolate moments breed.
I’m not first, but the message is crystalline
(a ragged wanderer finds a stream
and drinks, leaving no less for the next
parched throat): “the roof of the world
is for patient ones—hermits and
rivers, don’t mind appearances, ever,
only let bodhicitta’s quiet flow
carve you slowly, smoothly, quietly
and your heart will open like a canyon.”
And I rest spread wide in the quilted ground.