The Unbearable Craziness of Life

by Romana  12/10/2014

Devotion, devotion, nice toward a guru
Don't expect material goods in return
I climb to the top of the rugged mountain
Rats, despair, the fabled cave dirty, empty.

No external help to be found anywhere
Fruitless turning over rocks in valleys
Digging deep to find treasured wisdom
How are student and teacher one in mind?

Diamond thunderbolts streak in the sky
Lucid, ethereal, meditative inspiration
Enlightenment found, then lost to smoke
Ego returns, triumphs, as a prodigal child.

Joy, my spiritual teacher spied ahead at last,
Gloom, this person is possessed, insane
No way to communicate, wisdom crazy
I must give up all, even my valuable self.

Contemplate the teachings of the Buddhas
Slice my ego with the knife of detachment
Seek primordial blessings to grasp teachings
Keep my wandering mind on the path.

The vast swamp of confusion lies ahead
Floating clumps of insight and wisdom
I, the yogi, partake of all the simplicity
Anger, greed, delusion: sinking to oblivion.

That last, sinister gate lies ahead in the fog
Life well-lived mitigates my hopes and fears
Charnel ground*, horrifying, but familiar
I have been here many times before.

*Charnel Ground –In Tibet, this is where corpses are cut up to feed to animals.  Metaphorically, it is where everything begins and ends.  It is a busy place throughout eternity.