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
(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
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