Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend told me of one on the shore that lifted its head and opened the elegant beak and cried out in the long, sweet savoring of its life which, if you have heard it, you know is a sacred thing., and for which, if you have not heard it, you had better hurry to where they still sing. And, believe me, tell no one just where that is. The next morning this loon, speckled and iridescent and with a plan to fly home to some hidden lake, was dead on the shore. I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.
My friends, let’s grow up. Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here. Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice. Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost. It’s simple — how could we have missed it for so long? Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings, But please, let’s not be so shocked by them. Let’s not act so betrayed, As though life had broken her secret promise to us. Impermanence is life’s only promise to us, And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability. To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild, And her compassion exquisitely precise: Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth, She strips away the unreal to show us the real. This is the true ride — let’s give ourselves to it! Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage: There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high. We are not children anymore. The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost. Let’s dance the wild dance of no hope!
Knowing today brings the day of my death one day closer, I decide to love you more. By which I mean, I decide to practice letting myself be exactly who I am and letting you be exactly who you are and noticing how love grows in that most rich soil— not the thick clay of longing for things to be different, but the good loam of reality. Our time here is too dear to be spent with fruitless wishing. In this generous earth of allowing, what might grow? Real love. The kind that requires nothing but our laughter and tears, our anger and forgiveness, our frustration and tenderness. I feel love root anew in this ground where soon enough I, too, will belong. Do you feel it, too, the blooming between us, this love that asks only for us to be faithfully ourselves?
Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself: Should one who is absorbed with the Generous One be distracted by the gift? Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence; abundance is but the husk, for thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives. Abundance yields heedlessness; thankfulness brings alertness: hunt for bounty with the net of gratitude.
As earth and the other elements, together with space, Eternally provide sustenance in many ways for countless sentient beings, So may I become sustenance in every way for sentient beings To the limits of space, until all have attained nirvana.
As the sugatas of old gave birth to the bodhicitta And progressively established themselves in the training of a bodhisattva, So I too, for the benefit of beings, shall give birth to the bodhicitta And progressively train myself in that discipline.
At this moment my birth has become fruitful; I have realized my human life. Today I am born into the family of the buddhas; now I am a child of the buddhas. From now on I will forthrightly perform the actions befitting my family. I will act so as not to degrade the faultlessness and discipline of my family.
Just as with a blind man finding a jewel in a heap of dust, Thus, somehow, bodhicitta has been born in me. This is the supreme amrita which destroys death, The inexhaustible treasure which removes the world’s poverty.
It is the supreme medicine which cures the world’s sickness, The tree which provides rest for beings weary of wandering on the paths of existence. It is the universal bridge on which all travelers may pass over the lower realms, The rising moon of mind which dispels the torment of kleshas.
It is the great sun which puts an end to the obscurity of ignorance, The pure butter which comes of churning the milk of the holy dharma. For travelers wandering the paths of existence seeking happiness from objects of enjoyment, It is the supreme bliss near at hand, the great feast which satisfies sentient beings.
Today, witnessed by all protectors, I have welcomed sentient beings and sugatas. Devas and asuras rejoice!
Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed one was dwelling in Rajgriha at Vulture Peak mountain, together with a great gathering of the sangha of monks and a great gathering of the sangha of bodhisattvas. At that time the Blessed One entered the samadhi that expresses the dharma called “profound illumination”, and at the same time noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, while practicing the profound prajnaparamita, saw in this way: he saw the five skandhas to be empty of nature. Then through the power of the Buddha, venerable Shariputra said to noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, “How should a son or daughter of noble family train, who wishes to practice the profound prajnaparamita?”
Addressed in this way, noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, said to venerable Shariputra, “0 Shariputra, a son or daughter of noble family who wishes to practice the profound prajnaparamita should see in this way: seeing the five skandhas to be empty of nature. Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness. In the same way feeling, perception, formation and consciousness are emptiness. Thus, Shariputra, all dharmas are emptiness. There are no characteristics. There is no birth and no cessation. There is no impurity and no purity. There is no decrease and no increase.
Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no dharmas; no eye dhatu up to no mind dhatu, no dhatu of dharmas, no mind consciousness dhatu; no ignorance, no end of ignorance up to no old age and death, no end of old age and death; no suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and no non attainment. Therefore, Shariputra, since the bodhisattvas have no attainment they abide by means of prajnaparamita. Since there is no obscuration of mind, there is no fear. They transcend falsity and attain complete nirvana. All the Buddhas of the three times by means of prajnaparamita, fully awaken to unsurpassed, true, complete enlightenment. Therefore the great mantra of prajnaparamita, the mantra of profound insight, the unsurpassed mantra, the unequaled mantra, the mantra that calms all suffering, should be known as truth, since there is no deception. The prajnaparamita mantra is said in this way:
OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
Thus, Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound prajnaparamita.”
Then the Blessed One arose from that samadhi and praised noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, saying, “Good, good, O son of noble family; thus it is, O son of noble family, thus it is. One should train in the profound prajnaparamita just as you have taught and all the tathagatas will rejoice.” When the Blessed One had said this, venerable Shariputra and noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, that whole assembly and the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced and praised the words of the Blessed One.
Lotsawa bhikyu Rinchen De translated this text into Tibetan with the Indian Pandit Vimalamitra. It was edited by Lotsawa Gelo, Namkaha and others. This Tibetan text was copied from the fresco in Gegye Chemaling at the glorious Samye Vihara. It has been translated into English by the Nalanda Translation Committee with reference to several Sanskrit editions.
It was all the clods at once become
precious; it was the barn, and the shed,
and the windmill, my hands, the crack
Arlie made in the ax handle: oh, let me stay
here humbly, forgotten, to rejoice in it all;
let the sun casually rise and set.
If I have not found the right place,
teach me; for, somewhere inside, the clods are
vaulted mansions, lines through the barn sing
for the saints forever, the shed and windmill
rear so glorious the sun shudders like a gong.
Now I know why people worship, carry around
magic emblems, wake up talking dreams
they teach to their children: the world speaks.
The world speaks everything to us.
It is our only friend.
Breathe, said the wind. ….How can I breathe at a time like this, ….when the air is full of the smoke ….of burning tires, burning lives.
Just breathe, the wind insisted. ….Easy for you to say, if the weight ….of injustice is not wrapped around your ….throat, cutting off all air.
I need you to breathe.
I need you to breathe. ….Don’t tell me to be calm ….when there are so many reasons ….to be angry, so much cause for despair!
I didn’t say to be calm, said the wind.
I said to breathe.
We’re going to need a lot of air
to make this hurricane together.
Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of
seals bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves,
an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo,
with massive patience, who strain in the mud and
the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done,
again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task,
who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and
pass the bags along, who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in
or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know
they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Marge Piercy
earthy mindfulness 