the balance necessary between

Tags

2017, 7*, appearance, balance, being, cause and effect, checking, coagulation, denial, doing, empty, fortune, healing, holding onto, karma, legacy, life, lifetimes, lunge, morning, path, Refuge, relationship, room, self-grasping, shutters, statue, trauma, true nature, urge

in my corner of the room
                I have only just noticed the shutters ajar –
                                wondering if I dare push them further apart –

the dynamics of past lifetimes
                rebirths of exact measure to the traumas
                                round which they coagulate; but then, also, the

healing of relationships
                which tip towards fortune however
                                you make them, the balance necessary between doing

all that holding and checking
                of all those causes and effects which
                                comb-through the tangles of legacy but which

can so-easily become the
                local point of selfish, and being
                                insight through the skein of appearences into

their respective empty
                nature enabling them all to
                                appear in the first place which can so-easily

become a stoney denial
                of causality into one’s own statue
                                stuck in pose; the path through which neither

aggravates nor heals;
                the practice of Refuge in the
                                morning and at the urge to lunge of all

my doings, alongside
                all the other 6-fingered and 4-
                                thumbed sisters of this world

 

this teetered out of a comment made in response to one of Jana H. White’s posts, but I’ve been all the way through her site and can’t find it – she must have taken it down: it would make sense of the ‘corner of the room’ and the ‘6-fingered and 4-thumbed’ references, but, maybe, if you tune out a little, it works nonetheless…

 

 

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

balance wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
being & doing wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
life & lifetimes wormhole: amniotic avenue
morning wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
path wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell

 

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Christmas 2015

Tags

2015, 4*, Carol, Christmas, clouds, film, glance, living, sky, The Tree of Life, thought, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, true nature, view, vow, worry, writing

                Christmas 2015

                paced a day with Carol like a spread of cards
                walked under cloudy skies, watched the thoughts
                behind the glances of ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’;

                stopped worrying enough to write: I renew
                the vow to mix all that I live with its true nature;
                watched the view of glances in ‘The Tree of Life’

 

 

 

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

Carol wormhole: out
Christmas & thought wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
clouds wormhole: city streets
film wormhole: just
living & writing wormhole: before any writing
sky wormhole: river

 

without any buffet at all

Tags

2015, 5*, acceptance, being, depression, green, identity, notice, panic, pointlessness, self-compassion, silence, surface, true nature, twilight, water

                                                surfacing
                                from a quiet sag – only noticed when
                surfacing amid the twilight sump,

                                                only
                                the silence of lapping remembered when damp seam and sole
                feel cold and slimely green –

                                                still
                                I do not know my true nature, panicking and gasping,
                wanting to float, wanting to hover,

                                                even,
                                without any buffet at all, without taint, and
                the local too close to distinguish

                                                myse-

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: prelude: // travel
being & depression & identity wormhole: lack of center
green wormhole: river
pointlessness wormhole: is this it // all the time
silence wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
twilight wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
water wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha

 

cape and cowl

Tags

2014, 7*, Batman, breathing, cape, cowl, edge, identity, life, lifetimes, rest, stillness, true nature

                cape and cowl

                only in the midst
                of billow and flurry

                from lifetimes passed and
                current wafts breathing

                hardly sometimes at the edges
                between lifetimes to happen

                can you rest
                your battered identity enough

                to think with true nature enough
                to be still

 

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: between
breathing wormhole: reating & wriding
identity wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
life wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
lifetimes wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
stillness wormhole: wakeoutofadream

 

slow enough / to have love

Tags

2013, adjustment, ageing, breakdown, choice, confusion, consistency, doing, freedom, land, living, love, Martin Luther King, mountain, option, presumption, quiet, recognition, saviour, secret, shame, streets, stumbling, true nature, wasteland, work

                I used to skip and side-step all the
                too-presumptive adjustments
                for consistency and do it all

                in my own sweet way
                secretly hoping for recognition
                shamefully thinking to be the saviour

                now I’m confused and made old
                stumbling and doddering by the
                too-many prescriptive options to

                exercise the choice I am offered
                so I continue to do it all in my
                own sweet way, quiet enough

                to be effective, ignored enough
                to have scope and slow enough
                to have love; I have come to

                the top of the mountain and I have
                escaped a promised land
                four times injured to within

                an inch of my own true nature
                and I roam the streets and wastelands
                now, free at last, free at last

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: strain
doing wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
living wormhole: written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page
love wormhole: handsome
quiet wormhole: open window
recognition wormhole: not / the Catcher
streets wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
work wormhole: just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical

 

wakeoutofadream

Tags

2013, 6*, career, circular poem, contentment, CPD, defensive, defining, dream, freedom, gap, history, identity, KUE, lesson observation, loneliness, measure, process, professionalism, propaganda, sitting, stillness, struggle, teaching, time, true nature, waking

                                                                                wakeoutofadream
                       both content and free                            where I struggle
                   that is your true self                                         to take the measure
      and inhabit the loneliness                                              of the class I track and train
               and go with neither                                                  brilliant to my design
between define and defend                                                      and told upon inspection
           (nothing to stand on)                                                      I should be engineering them
                        to find the gap                                                   by process
to history or the propaganda                                                and should have been
   moving neither left nor right                                         for years now
                                   keep your seat                            what have I been doing?
                                                              just

 

 

 

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

career & identity wormhole: weight
circular poem: no / thing
dream wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
history wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
loneliness wormhole: lonely and free
professionalism wormhole: retirement
sitting wormhole: bud
stillness wormhole: still
teaching wormhole: Virginia
time wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

 

six paramitas

Tags

2017, adjustment, aspiring Bodhichitta, being, doing, eyebrow, feet, giving, identity, joy, Mahayana, morality, patience, sand, seeing, settling, shoulders, sitting, skin, smile, talking to myself, the Six Perfections, true nature, wisdom

six paramitas

give, Mark, like you are peeling and cutting off the
scaley skin that cloys around you obscuring your

pure light; be cool, Mark, shelter from the spikes and
eyes of provocation, the winning curl of enticement;

endure, Mark, and face the walls with due measure
and renewed adjustment across a noble brow; nurture,

Mark, a modest smirk: you have the time to do this
all even when busy; return, Mark, to a settled release,

hung from the point between your shoulders like a
perfect coat-hanger; be, Mark, the eye wide shut,

that sees the further shore is in the very sand you
squelch between your feet, sinking lower into pudding

 

these emerged from the section of Gems of Dharma, Jewels of Freedom by Je Gampopa introducing the Six Perfections: delving into etymology reveals facets and perspectives like walking around a display case at a museum and really having a good look at something fascinating; and then I thought, c’mon, Mark, `about time you started standing on your own two feet; so, I sat down to do so

 

 

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

being wormhole: singsong chant
doing & seeing wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
feet wormhole: sleep now
giving wormhole: my seat // now
identity & talking to myself wormhole: holiday
settling wormhole: moment
sitting wormhole: the bench
smile wormhole: Open – All – Ours

 

Open – All – Ours

Tags

2017, 8*, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, brown, buildings, clouds, dedication, echo, generation, identity, land, lifetimes, living, Mahayana, Open All Hours, pocket, punya, rain, Shantideva, sky, smile, stone, tectonic plates, true nature, work

                Open – All – Ours

                out across the vast land
                of all of my many lives

                what started as a stave-
                shack has long-since

                become a stone colossus
                wider than the sky in which

                my own clouds rain,
                with openings measureless

                to man and tectonic plates
                stacked up and arching

                in inconceivable echo;
                that’s where we all work,

                life after life, all by my-selves
                meticulously stocking up

                even anything so small,
                taking whole lifetimes

                sometimes to place a
                single smile in its right

                and proper place because
                you never know when it

                might come in handy;
                well, it’s a living; do you

                like my trusty brown
                overcoat – nice, deep

                pockets – comes with
                the job, been in my

                family now for so many
                generations now … once

                I catch up with myself

 

constructed out of Bodhicharyavatara, chapter three, verse ten, by Shantideva

 

 

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

brown wormhole: monument to vainglory
buildings wormhole: time
clouds wormhole: industrial estate
echo & sky wormhole: so pleased to see you again
identity & lifetimes wormhole: ‘never look up’?
living wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show
rain wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
smile wormhole: to allow / passage
stone wormhole: transmuted
work wormhole: neither nude nor / descending a staircase

 

‘never look up’?

Tags

2017, 7*, anxiety, being, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, death, doing, identity, karma, life, lifetimes, rebirth, self, Shantideva, skandhas, the Three Poisons, transition, true nature

                I fell from myself and
                felt the need
                to build myself up otherwise
                out of anxiety

                every single
                closed-eye assent and
                grapple made on the way down
                left me scabbed and arthritic

                hoping I’d reached the bottom
                or found a ledge
                but who was I really kidding,
                I ceased to be

                every time
                I thought to pause, I passed
                from being a who or a what to
                no more, each time,

                save the legacy I left
                in a life somewhere –
                ‘wha’, whossedhat!’ –
                and the potency I carry

                to some other sorry
                hope like the sack of thorns
                that won’t sit comfortable;
                who is it keeps teaching me

                ‘never look up’?

 

weaving from out of chapter 2, Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Shantideva

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
being wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
death wormhole: 1966
doing & lifetimes wormhole: so pleased to see you again
identity wormhole: what wounds have you got?
life wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

so pleased to see you again

Tags

2017, 8*, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, compassion, desire, doing, echo, eyes, faces, gravity, lifetimes, light, love, memory, mother sentient beings, others, seeing, Shantideva, sky, space, speech, true nature, vanity, will

                oh, my loves, who look at me
                with eyes that dull-echo from

                lifetimes back “don’t I love you,
                don’t you owe me?” but cannot

                remember; yes, yes you do, yes
                I do, with so much real interest;

                I will love, I will do, what needs
                to be done, and short-circuit all

                this vanity and indifference;
                enough of peripatetic desire and

                unsustainable will, I owe your
                dear sweet faces (so much to

                account, so much to invest) a
                truer nature to acknowledge,

                a current in to which to plug,
                a circuit around which to light –

                exponential to the bursting sky –
                space-walking gloriously around

                the gravity of our own true natures,
                so pleased to see you again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara I, 17-19

 

 

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

Bodhichitta wormhole: inbreath
compassion wormhole: transmuted
doing wormhole: everwhile
echo wormhole: open window
eyes & lifetimes & sky wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
faces wormhole: Sylvia
light & love wormhole: writing: // in turn
others wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
seeing wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
space wormhole: within
speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance