September 3rd, 2011 Start from 〇 and return to 〇. Everything starts from 〇 and returns to 〇in the end. Be egoless and unconditioned in order to perform in accordance with the Way. Bring bliss to all under Heaven and rescue all beings. The Great Way is its being, what it is, which is unconditioned […]
And yet I hope that soon this week will end,
That dawn will break, and broken hearts will mend
So that a wholesome Sabbath day will bring
Enlightened rest; that birds again will sing
Instead of fearsome rustlings in the dark;
And the whole world will be a pleasant park:
The wood in which we wandered just a copse,
A refuge for the timid beast, which hops
To cover, then comes out at will to see
The sunlight play, no need at all to flee
From hungry predator. A dream! As such
It does not heal, but just provides a crutch
For fractured consciousness, which seeks in vain
To mend its broken world, where only pain
Defines reality, and we are lame,
And cannot run, compete against, or tame
The ravening beast which seeks us, and devours
The meagre gleanings of successful hours.
The dawn will show a good God to be lies,
And noonday sun expose a Lord of Flies.
I know the time is nigh: the global scale
Has tipped towards destruction. Soon the tale
Of all man’s deeds and misdeeds will just stop,
And end in silence. Sin’s ripe fruit will drop
And smash upon the ground of all our being.
That ground may then remain, all else then fleeing,
As cold and hard as it has ever been,
Unheard, unsmelt, untouched and all unseen
By anything that mars the pristine scape
Of nothingness with any wanton shape
Irrelevant to Being-in-Itself –
All life placed on that continental shelf
Where fossils lay well out of sight and out
Of mind, mere rocks embedded there to flout
The law of life which says that we must change,
And we must use our power to arrange
Some continuity of gene, no noise
To rattle or disturb death’s equipoise.
So IDA is our perpetuity,
Extinct and petrified where none can see.
We came. We paused. We went. We had our say.
And whether night or day, it makes no sense:
Our toil receives no lasting recompense.
The arbit’ry division of the days
As hours, minutes, seconds; and the ways
In which these segments must be spent; and how
We should be happy and fulfilled; who bow
To, who revere; and where we are consigned
To at our death: all these make chains that bind
Us. We embrace these shackles, since the free
Must for themselves define what they must be:
What “happy” is, and what should make them sad,
And wherein dwells the good, and where the bad.
Night brings no rest unless we lose ourselves
Inside a dream-world where our psyche delves
Into those wishes unfulfilled, beyond
The grasp of nightmare’s reach, a pond
Beneath whose surface deep desire thrives
Without diminishing our thwarted lives;
A magic chalice where all beauty lives,
Which takes from no-one, ever – only gives
To all, and none must beg: its grace
Wells up to all, and all can find a place.
But dawn’s cold light reveals it full of lies.
Best not to dream when we must close our eyes.
Phillip Medhurst 