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Westward Dhammo! The Future of Buddhism in the West
Fall 1995   Vol. 12 #1
Fall 1995   Vol. 12 #1

Poems/Not Poems | Poetry from the Sangha

The Big Fat Belly of the Laughing Buddha Man

By Dane Cervine

 
 

(for Ken Wilbur & those of the linear ascent)

 

The very thought of “up” makes me want to go there.

Up to God and union with All and

the Whole Big Sha-Bang.

Up and away from

this human life, and the grief in my body

with its tugs and pulls and contrariness.

Up into my head, into spirit,

often confusing the two . . .

where the sun is bright and God is clean

and the dirty little task of being human

is left a million miles behind.

 

I want to go there.

But I know better . . .

 

give me rather

the big fat belly of the laughing buddha man

seated with great gravity

on the ground,

on the ground.

The sky is in his eyes and the thunder

rolls through his belly laughter—

but the center of his being, of his wide open being

is down deep in that body belly of his,

not in the head, nor in the air above it,

not even in the crown chakra.

 

The secret of loving one’s life

lies closer to the scar in the belly

that connects us to this human birth

than it does to the head which ponders it.

It is down in the navel of that fat man with laughing eyes

that we shall truly come to feel at home with the weight

and the gravity of this marvelous human existence . . .

and the lightness of it all.

 

∞

 

From the Fall 1995 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 12, No. 1)
Text © 1995-2020 by Dane Cervine

Author

Dane Cervine is a poet and therapist who lives in Santa Cruz, California. His work has appeared in The Hudson Review, The Sun, and the Atlanta Review. 

Author

Dane Cervine is a poet and therapist who lives in Santa Cruz, California. His work has appeared in The Hudson Review, The Sun, and the Atlanta Review. 

 
 
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