What is there to discuss? It is as it is.
Do our fumbling, stumbling efforts
To set our own words, wrapped in tar,
Stinking and sticky with Samsara,
On the table as if roses
Benefit?
I finally remember why I had decided some months ago to give up on the idea of virtual Sanghas. There are too many ways for pitiful text to be taken, and without presence, too often are they taken other than as intended.
It seems irony. The Internet is the best, physical example of interdependence in existence… for all it is just another illusion within a greater swath of illusions.
For all its parable perfection, still, we stub our toes, bark our shins, snarl and snap and fight and incite… in every moment choosing the very thing we say we most would obliterate and move beyond.
It is, however, the best place to learn humility, humbleness, and what it is to be kind. It boils and roils with fast flying shuriken words, with fingers entirely too nimble and eager, like piranha, rushing to tear flesh from bone.
All intent easily upset, an eggbasket upon the head of one who has leapt from a cliff, the ground runny-white-and-yellow-stained from repeated attempts to balance on the precipice. Loving lemmings racing themselves, eyes closed.
Hell’s Kitchen, Trial by Fire, and Initiation all at once… whenever you need to remember how far you’ve yet to walk, just visit the local virtual Sangha.
Set into the dust, albumen and yolks between my toes, heavy of heart and despairing of mind, weeping for how hard it is to be kind, to find kindness, and even in the midst of the tears, laughter… for me, for you, for all of us.
Are we not the most preciously precocious, the most awfully good, the most terribly treasured?
Would you believe it that I love you? Great puffy cushions over my head, upon which each of you sit, reclining with the hand gestures of fearlessness, compassion, and wisdom… things I so often miss, lack, overlook.
Dusty, egg on the face, and weary… I think I’ll watch for a time. And if you cross the abyss, landing basket, eggs, and mind undisturbed, rest assured… I will smile.