\
Look up Heaven,
look around Earth.
Red flesh, white bones.
Beyond life what survives?
\
I take off my shoes
and walk barefoot
through the sweet smelling grasses of the fields,
wild birds flying above me without fear.

My heart at one with nature,
I open,
absorbed beneath falling petals
while the clouds silently enfold me.

Simply trust...
do not the petals flutter down,
just like that?
\
A solitary cloud floats out of a mountain cave;
it stays or departs without a care.
The bright mirror of the moon hangs in the sky;
impervious to chaos and fear.

The shadow of the bamboo sweeps over the fields
but the dew is not disturbed.
The crescent of the moon passes over the lake
its shimmering surface unperturbed.

The stream rushes down swiftly
but all is silent.
The grasses wave unceasing in the breeze
but I am quiet, inviolate.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
\
Journeys bring power and love into me.
Even if I can't go somewhere,
I move in the passageways of the self.
They are like shafts of light,
always changing,
changing me when I explore them.
\
The perfumed flowers are my sisters;
the deer, the horse, the great eagle,
these are my brothers.
The rocky crests,
the juices of the meadows,
the body heat of the pony, of men, and women --
all belong to the same family.
\
Pine needles
Inches deep
Hug the ground.
No one lives here,
Why do so many paths go up from the foothills?
Only one moon grazes the peak.

Long life,
the wild plums want it, too.
Why is it all so beautiful
This fake dream?
Why?
\
This soul torch I hold up lights the sky,
think of all those nights, freezing, staring into the river.
no walls,
no roof,
no anything.

How many times do I have to remind myself?
There is no way not to be who I am,
and where.
\
Life leads along
a path of many windings.
First the course is blocked, 
then it runs straight again.

Here winged thoughts may 
pour freely forth in words,
There the heavy burden of knowledge
must be shut away in silence.

But when two people 
are at one in their inmost hearts,
They shatter 
even the strength of iron or of bronze.

And when two people understand 
each other in their inmost hearts,
Their words are sweet and strong, 
like the fragrance of orchids.
\
Just as the sun shines forth 
in redoubled beauty after rain,
or as a forest grows more freshly green 
from charred ruins after a fire,
so, too, the new time is all the more glorious
by contrast with the misery of the old.
\
Time is an illusion,
a whisper of light between the cracks,
an outline of the inner reaches of being,
a veil of separation.

Each one of us is born in full spiritual regalia,
wrapped within the essence of our life's purpose,
we hold the meaning, the choice, the ending to the story.

Though we step into the vacuum,
into the illusion of time on a continuum,
and forget to breathe in, or look back, or experience our innate spirituality,
we can never truly be separated from it.
\
The Bridge of Faith is long and flat
a two-way path that goes on for what seems like forever...
to the end of the fourth dimension of illusory reality,
from pain to the promised land,
from lost to found.

The Bridge of Belief is arched so steeply
you cannot see over the crest till you get there.
Then you can see clearly all that lies on the other side.
Crossing is easy if you know how,
an adventure filled with wonder and excitement.
But this is a one-way path...
once at the crest a choice must be made
either to go on or to turn back.
\
Looming up
the peak is rough and steep --
what force!

The trees look like works of magic
and all of the stones 
are possessed of powers.

Once you climb the peak
your eyes
will be opened wide.

But until then
it stands veiled in unbroken
fog and mist.
\
Stretching into the distance
the sea 
swallows a hundred rivers.

For thousands of miles
the spray joins the waves
to the sky.

A violent storm 
beats against it
but it never moves at all.

Then on the blue waves
the sun glitters
and the mist is burned away.
\
This place of wild land
has no boundaries
north south east or west.

It is hard to see
even the tree
in the middle of it.

Turning my head
I can look beyond
in each direction.

For the first time
I know that my eyes
have been deceiving me.
\
Broad and flat
it emerges
beyond height.

I don't even
catch a glimpse
inside my mind.

No one
knows where
the summit is.

From the beginning
there never was
a path to it.
\
You are the answer, the experience, the truth,
untouchable, indestructible,
even loveable.

Journey home,
take credit for having played the game
with all your heart
as if it were real,
magnificently convincing,
especially to yourself.

Awaken
to your blissful, radiant, fearless self.
Draw in the beautiful white light,
feel the radiance of your field expanding.

Draw in the breath of life,
and as you breathe
smile.
\
Even when there are borders,
triangles of relationships,
limitations of physical form,
we can align with the flow of energy,
and experience ourselves as the ecstatic spin,
spiraling up,
to burst from the fountain of consciousness.

Life is magical
if we awaken the fearless self,
and truly
freely 
live it.
\
