the mantra of Maitreya

Tags

2018, 8*, acceptance, anger, attachment, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, delusion, emptiness, falling, fire, flower, ground, life, love, Maitreya, mantra, openness, others, peace, sentient beings, suffering

                                                                the mantra of Maitreya

                                oh my loves,

                wriggling on the very thorns you couldn’t live without
                struck by the match over the gasoline you just poured
                falling like a stone through the emptiness you cannot evade

                you wave your arms at me
                you entice me in your dancing embrace
                you collide with me completely oblivious

                let me place the flower in the barrel of the gun
                let me accept-wide your disfigurement, your awkwardness
                let me be the ground, flat as the palm of a hand

                                open
                                open
                                open

                                SOHA

 

Maitreya will be the next being to manifest as a Buddha in this world after the teachings of the current Buddha have been lost; the mantra is actually OM MAITRI MAITRI MAHA MAITRI ARYA MAITRI SOHA; insofar as it can be translated it reads ‘OM love, love, great love, sublime love SOHA’, where ‘OM’ is ‘regarding everything from the most-bottom line’ and ‘SOHA’ is ‘let it be so, as it already is’; the poem flowered quite petally from Bodhisattvacharyavatara, chapter VI, verses 37-38: [37] And like this, when they are so bewildered under the spell and influence of the kleśas, they will even destroy and, finally, take their own treasured life, then, how might it be hoped they would hold themselves back from harming or killing the bodies of others? [38] Even if I have lost, or cannot develop, compassion for these beings intoxicated and driven mad by their kleśas, who are engaged within their own self-destruction – lost in their own perdition, chained within their own fall – and who are, even now, committed to my destruction, then, how could I develop anger towards them? The least I could do would be to restrain from anger.

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

acceptance wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
emptiness wormhole: sun setting over a lake, 1840
life wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
love wormhole: the reach turned to love
Maitreya wormhole: birth in the world
openness wormhole: transferring
others wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra

 

scintillating to mind’s content

Tags

2017, 6*, being, blogging, browse, centre, counting, doing, emptiness, growth, heart, internet, love, mantra, mind, mother sentient beings, publishing, sharing, sitting, true nature, world, writing

                things happen according
                to my published pages or
                didn’t need writing at all

                so I stopped coiunting mantras
                and let the world sit and
                browse all around me with

                as near to the love I can
                muster, now, at the centre
                and all of the love we

                could share if we but knew
                the empty centre at our
                heart from which we grow

                scintillating to mind’s content

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
doing wormhole: all // are // none
emptiness wormhole: anxiety
love wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
mind wormhole: sometimes
publishing wormhole: next unexpected step
sitting wormhole: ash leaves
world wormhole: that
writing wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin

 

om muni muni maha muniye soha

Tags

2015, 6*, beach, body, bones, Buddha, feet, fruit, gods, Gran Canaria, heat, identity, ink, knuckles, leisure, mantra, salt, Shakyamuni, sound, Spanish, stone, story, swimming, toes, water

                hola de nuevo Gran Canaria
                quiet crucible of dimpled buttock
                and all the beach furniture of recline
                balmy Spanish exchanged – warm water
                poured slappingly on hot languid stone

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

                hola de nuevo Gran Canaria
                with your reveal of dark ink identity
                your candid feet with no guile, each toe
                tells a different story to your tread – painted
                toes and slight bones between knuckles

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

                ah, you bodies you slink
                cool and day-glo all about me
                you bath-robe gods high above
                with your salt-water pools and fruit –
                the headland a giant sitting Buddha

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

beach wormhole: is there anything to write?
Buddha wormhole: child
feet wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
identity & water wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
sound wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
stone wormhole: St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

 

Tara mantras

Tags

2014, 7*, being, flying, green, head, land, looking, mantra, mother sentient beings, sound, speech, Tara, travelling, trees

                from ground to thirty
                two thousand feet

                with Tara mantras for
                every head

                that crisps and scrunches
                and overhead cl’cks

                looking left then right
                then down with their ‘like’s

                and occasional ‘I
                was …’s while the

                turning trees carousel
                over green green land

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being wormhole: reating & wriding
green wormhole: the sitting room
looking wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
sound wormhole: I turn to wake up
speech wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
Tara wormhole: thar she perched
travelling wormhole: forgotten anything
trees wormhole: this time

 

ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …

Tags

2016, 8*, being, breathing, child, clothes, colour, comics, despair, Dorian Gray, emperor, exclamation, exposed, flowers, Granada, hope, identity, inspiration, light, love, mantra, model, phrase, portrait, Prajnaparamita, rain, rainbow, realisation, retirement, secret, seeing, self, self-containment, self-image, speech, step, thread, tragedy, vanity, wandering, words, world

 

 
le mot just
the piquant phrase
                                         the simple model rising magnificent
                                         from cavalcades
                                         of stoic tumbling

                                         threads through like
                                         weave which clothes me
                                         presentable to the world …

                                         but no one sees the
                                         emperor’s clothes of
                                         such fine thread it cannot
                                         be seen, no wise child
                                         to point and exclaim
                                         the hang and drape
                                         to put an end to all step –
                                         “look, mummy, that man
                                           is not an emperor!”

 

 
less than naked
I am seen right through
                                         adrift of discourse
                                         I step with stubborn countenance,
                                         all the better to
                                         stare myself into existence,

 

 
awkward and
hidden away in some attic
                                         lest I lose [what I haven’t
                                         got] self-contained in trembling
                                         vanity, secretive in hope
                                         of things to come, desparate
                                         in tragedy that my grimy
                                         portrait might be seen …

 

 
wander, wander
around the flowers, smell
                                         their colour, breathe their
                                         light and let the light rain
                                         fall in shards of rainbow,
                                         cleansing with love –

 

 

 
                      om     ga – te     ga – te
                                      pa – ra – ga – te
                                                      pa – ra – sam – ga – te
                                                                      bo – dhi     so – ha

 

retirement #3 when in Granada … visit the Alhambra, and visit the Generalife gardens … [if you have booked up to three months ahead]; on the walk up to the palaces are trees and shrubs which are plenty-watered by sprinklers, in the morning sun the sprays will often catch a rainbow at their edge; the bordered captions in the poem are comic-conjunctives, there is a beginning, middle and end being told here, folks; the mantra: thaya tha om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi soha, is the mantra of Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom; it can be somewhat semantically translated as “it’s like this: [everything is] gone, gone, completely gone, completely and perfectly gone with no loss, enlightened [dispersed, dispelled] all-right!”; but what’s ‘gone’: “the slings and arrows of outrageous romance” … of one’s self and the whole world positioned awkward to placate its mewling little story, as stolen by Joni Mitchell, who was talking too much at the time, from ‘Willy the Shake’;

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being wormhole: pocket
breathing wormhole: within
child & light wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
comics wormhole: chartless …
identity wormhole: not / the Catcher
love wormhole: love and precision
rain wormhole: monument to vainglory
realisation wormhole: passing below
seeing wormhole: con / sum / mate
speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
words wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
world wormhole: the skyline

 

after all?

Tags

2014, autumn, being, breath, cars, duty, finding, found, glimpse, identity, journey, leaf, lost, mantra, others, passing, poetry, quiet, seeing, self, service, sound, streetlight, talking to myself, tarmac, writing

                is it really worth me writing isn’t it
                just finding wisps and glimpses
                between which to find the outline
                of my wan and piquant poetic self

                no great find and no great journey
                wouldn’t I be better found lost in
                duty and service to the others
                I seek to identity myself sic from

                defined by all common denominator
                factored through by breath and mantra
                to find the being before the breath and
                after the sound or is there a self

                nevertheless to be recognised in the
                scrape of dried leaf under streetlight
                across the tarmac the first to herald
                autumn business and quietly passing cars

                after all?

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

autumn wormhole: under silent direction of architecture
being wormhole: Morning in a City, 1944
breath wormhole: Summertime, 1943
cars wormhole: along
identity & sound wormhole: … anymore
others & talking to myself wormhole: it is complete
passing wormhole: 1963
poetry wormhole: like butterflies on / buddleia
quiet wormhole: Sunday afternoon
seeing wormhole: wriving
streetlight wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
writing wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,

 

Buddha / Shakyamuni

Tags

2014, blue, Buddha, cliffs, Gran Canaria, mantra, progress, sea, shadow, Shakyamuni, sky, sun, swimming

 

 

 

                                Buddha
                            Shakyamuni

                                no matter
                the progress I thought I made
                paddling on my back away from
                the cliff head to the sun

                                the point
                at which the bluffs and crags
                the face-shapes and scars
                exposed-cracked shadowed-clean
                distant distinct and clear

                                met
                the sheer sky from top to bottom
                                didn’t shift
                                at all

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

blue & sky wormhole: Bodiam Castle
Buddha & sun wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
sea wormhole: ‘discution poli / d’orage …’
shadow wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!

 

Brugges April 2015 – looking lost

Tags

2015, air, archaeology, architecture, brass, Brugges, buildings, calves, carillon, church, compassion, faces, finding, ghosts, girl, gold, grey, happiness, history, identity, infrastructure, lemon, letting go, lifetimes, lime, looking, lost, mantra, measure, nuns, oak, passing, people, portrait, posture, purple, saints, scaffolding, seeing, silver, simplicity, sky, society, sound, space, speech, station, step, sun, time, train, wheel, wood

                Brugges April 2015

                looking to find myself at the international train station – all
                the people passing – I’ll feel stone-faced and unmoved until
                I let their faces pass with all manner of their step ‘n’ roll
                looking to find themselves at the international train station –

                looking is found when letting is seen – lost     the civic
                detail of architecture in spikey scaffolding       turning; the
                bite in the sunny air before the grey girder holding     everything –
                the tracks and posts of infrastructure turned by brick-weight

                and wooden wheel found archaeological, built space high
                into the sky with threefold holy design – life spent and time-
                worn in silent healing sitting collected and still in a lifetime
                of ghostly movement before brick pillars clear as history

                makes them; “time is just a measurement” said John right,
                before he died “happiness is very simple” said Ediccia;
                the purple skirt was settled then the lime shirt veined lemon
                with om mani padme hum threads was procured and the slipper

                slipped from the waitress’ heel as she used her fine calves
                to find free tables; golden saints on pinnacles languidly
                show something that the 7 year old strutting before the
                Open Light Brass Band cannot as oak twigs bud in the sky;

                the dark-carved wood gilt with silver effulgence to a higher
                record than the fine-branched brass scales that measure
                the herbs porcelain to the touch while the carillon plays
                dissimilar tunes discordantly to forgotten time and history

 

I am very pleased to present the above, cultured from a short stay in Brugges at the beginning of this month; we travelled by Eurostar leaving from St. Pancras station and passed through Brussels, then out to Brugges; there is no newer building in the centre of the town, the spires and towers still rise down side streets no matter where you walk (Spire of the Church of Our Lady); there is a large photograph of nuns dedicated to life healing at the exhibition in Sint-Janshospitaal and an exhibition ‘Right, Before I Die’ by Andrew George of photographs of people towards the ends of their life and the words they have to say; we visited the old apothecary back at Sint-Janshospitaal; there was a music festival happening but we only saw the Open Light Brass Band play …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
architecture & buildings & girl & identity & passing & people & seeing & sound & time wormhole: sight / seeing
church wormhole: Trinity Arts
compassion wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
faces & society wormhole: mass
ghosts wormhole: under silent direction of architecture
gold & speech wormhole: gold wedding band
grey wormhole: Hypnopompia
history wormhole: ha ha ha
lemon & lime wormhole: crumpled / notebooks / at the end of a gentle retreat
letting go & space wormhole: between
lifetimes wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure
looking wormhole: bottom of Herbert Road to the / foot of Eglinton Hill dream
oak wormhole: corroboration
posture wormhole: oh,
purple wormhole: the edge has come …
silver wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
sky wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
sun & train wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
wood wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop