The Moment of Life
I don’t have any advice.
But know that you’re alive,
And alive is not dead.
This is what being alive is like.
Life—an always-changing present moment,
Right here, right now.
It will get better.
I promise.
Then something bad will happen
And it will get worse.
And then better, and better, and better and then…
It’s always changing, for better or worse.
Life is a given gift
Where you get to be the present moment.
You’re given everything—including the gift of not wanting,
Where even “I can’t stand this, I want to die” is allowed.
But in death, there’s no present moment.
In death, the present moment dies.
In death, there’s no longer an experiencer
Experiencing the death of what cannot die.
Life is about experiencing this—right now,
Where anything can happen and everything is possible.
Change is always a-coming,
For the best and the worst of everything happens right now.
The present moment only exists because of you.
Without you, there’s no moment,
Not one that you can experience.
You have this present-moment experience,
And that’s all there is.
So my ‘advice’ to you:
Know that you’re the experiencer
Experiencing the present moment.
There is nothing else.
I wish you the best of experiences,
The ones that dreams are made of,
Of love found and never lost;
That peace on Earth resides in you.
But of course, you won’t get that,
For there are storms a-comin’
And warriors on the horizon,
And enemies within.
So I know not what’s best for you
Or even what that means.
I know not why you exist
Nor where you should go or what you should do.
I don’t have advice,
Only my loving heartfelt wishes
As I say, “Stay close to yourself
And listen to your heart.”
Pain is only pain,
Only thoughts and feelings
Coming and going, coming and going.
Again and again.
Life is this, and now it’s that.
There’s no “Why?” or “What for?”
Just know you are the One,
The experiencer who gets to experience it all.
Did you choose your path?
Or did your path choose you?
Perhaps there’s no path
And no one to take it.
So notice your experiences
And see what happens.
Watch yourself decide this and that,
As it happens anyway.
You stand dead centre,
Oh-so-alive on your stage,
Right in the middle of you,
Directing the story called “Your Life.”
And then the very next line is written,
Just as you speak it.
Right on cue, as it happens,
Always here, always now.
Two by Two
Nothing tastes so good
That it justifies
How an animal feels
When it arrives at the slaughterhouse
Eating meat so tender
However juicy and satisfying
Can never justify
The terror of it all
When I buy plastic
It might end up in the sea
I’m not having marine pollution
Hanging on me
When I eat my tuna sandwich
A turtle could have died
While I enjoy my fish and chips
A dolphin might not have survived
One way of saving the planet
Is to wipe out the entire human race
Then the earth will thrive
As nature becomes alive
The Blame Game
I carry my pain
In a sack full of shame
Inside of me
Lives the word “guilty”
The pain of the undeserveds and unloveables
The shame felt by the self-rejectors
The guilt carried by the not-good-enoughs
All within me
So in defiance I turn away
From the world
From you
And from myself
No one sees
My aloneness
As I abandon
And reject myself
I go back and forth
From someone to no one
no one to someone
And realize I am both
Alone to not alone
Not alone to alone
They are the same
I am alone, yet always here
Always here and never alone
Here I am
And there you are
We are
This.
What Really Comes From Me?
What really comes from within me?
That wasn’t what someone else said before?
What really—really—is original me?
Really.
I don’t have an earth-shattering breakthrough
About what it is
That makes no sound but speaks
Can’t feel but senses
Doesn’t hear but knows the spoken
Is without sight but sees all
Accepting all without a single thought.
I could explain more
By recycling what has been said so many times before;
It can’t be given or taken from you
And no one can tell you where it is
Or how to find it,
Or say what it is, exactly.
Some say they have it but perhaps they don’t
Some say they don’t but think they do
Some think they don’t but they do
And some think they do but they don’t!
And we think a few do, but most don’t
I have it but I don’t
I don’t have it but I do
I do and I don’t, don’t you?
Some are just simply with their being-ness
And don’t bother themselves
With thinking too much about
Who or what they are.
So just know this:
What you experience
Is your experience
And what’s yours
Is yours.
Old Smokey
So lingeringly disgusting
That smell of stale tobacco smoke
Red face, embarrassing that others so trusting
Have to sit next to this smelly bloke
It’s on me and everywhere I’ve been
So now that it’s clearly seen
I mean this from my heart
It’s the same as me not caring
Where the hell I fart
That fat old bloke
What does he know?
How can he
Looking and smelling like that?
Our inner state is reflected
As ourselves
In our bodies and our lives
So think good, look good
Old Smokey thought that they think
Only the slim, healthy Yoga body juicers
Are wise
And perhaps they’re right.
So it all goes wrong
Failed again
I so wanted to be the unconditionally accepting soul that I wanted to be
But only under the conditions of what I consider to be acceptable.
A friend said I can
Unconditionally accept my conditional self
And so once again, I am set free
My unconditional no-self accepting my conditional self
Nothing has changed, only thought
For the self is always conditional
The no-self never was
And I am aware of both
They embrace
Merging into a loving compassion
For all that I am
All that you are
All that is.
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