Rays Of The Dhamma
DEDICATION
(A poem to be read before meditating)
With earnest mind I venture now
My labours to review
To high endeavour I will vow
To give myself anew
For purity I cannot bring
May striving suffice,
For holiness my offering
Shall be self's sacrifice.
That wisdom that I cannot claim
I will make haste to learn,
And this shall be my constant aim
All folly hence to spurn.
So may this hour testify
The earnest of my will,
My noblest yearnings gratify,
My inner needs fulfil.
MELANCHOLY
On a sunless day
My sad body tries in vain
To make shadows play.
VANITY
Seeking to be grand
The empty mirage mocks me
And I clutch at sand.
REAPING
(Thoughts on karma suggested by the Harvest.)
The ancient cries of 'Harvest-Home'
Once more with gladness fill the air,
The fulfillness of the year has come
And brought rejoicing everywhere.
In hope the seeds were sown in spring
And nature does her promise keep
That what is sown at last shall bring
A harvest rich for us to reap.
Our lives are like an open field
Where day by day we sow our seeds,
And they in time shall bring their yield,
A harvest from our thoughts and deeds.
Then nature's lesson let us learn,
Sow wisely for the days to come,
That we may reap the good we yearn
And bring a happy harvest home.
NIRVANA
A man born blind can never know
The beauty of the sunset glow,
No words can make him understand
The splendour of the vision grand.
Nirvana cannot be defined
or comprehended by the mind,
For what is ultimately Real
No creed is able to reveal.
The teacher can but point ahead
Along the road that we must tread,
Who walks the path at last shall see
With inward eyes, Reality.
NIRVANA: The supreme Goal of Buddhist endeavour release from the limitations
of existence. A state attainable in this life by right aspirations. purity
of life, and the elimination of egoism.
SACRIFICE
Self-forgetfully
The candle gives us its light
Sacrificially.
REBIRTH
From the dying wick
A new candle takes the flame
And teaches rebirth.
LIBERATION
The departing flame
Unfed by further fuel
Enters Nirvana.
THE WHEEL
Turning, ever turning,
the world, the seasons and the Wheel
to which I'm bound by chains of my own making.
Returning, ever returning,
again and yet again to wear out bodies
like suits of clothes and fill a thousand
graves with useless bones-
Is there no end to this,
no way to find the bliss of Liberation?
I will unyoke the chariot, make the stallions flee,
and from the halted Wheel at last break free-
"If both wife and husband wish to behold each other in this very
life and the life to come, if both are matched in faith, in virtue, in
generosity and in wisdom, then do they behold each other in this very
life and in the life to come."
The Buddha: From the Anguttara Nikaya.
LOVE'S HOPE
another age, another shore,
Incarnate in another fame,
My heart;s true love I've known before
Though called by now forgotten name,
Together we again shall be,
For ties that bind out hearts remain,
My true love shall return to me
And I will claim her once again.
Since the so-called "soul" or "personality" is nothing more than a constantly changing "stream of consciousness" this poem, on the face of it. is a nonsense. However, even "streams of consciousness" can flow together again when a karmic link has been forged between them, and future lives and relationships will be no less "real" that the ones we know now. The romantic slant given to the doctrines of karma and rebirth in this poem will not appeal to the earnest Buddhist, whose aim-quite rightly-is nothing else than that of breaking free from the Wheel of Rebirth altogether. For the less advanced-still bound by attachments-it offers some comfort, and is in keeping with the practical approach of Buddhism which recognises that for most people Nirvana will remain, for a long time to come, a far distant Goal.