It is late. I am tired. Lying in bed I cannot sleep. The cool winds slip throught the windows and beckon me to step outside: look at the so far away stars, listen to the mountains on which the trees sleep, feel the new day dawning someplace distant.
Charlotte is sleeping like the trees on the mountain. She sleeps so well this lovely woman. And dreams so deeply. It is as if she is not even here in this room. Though she is, and she is beautiful in the light of the moonless sky. Beautiful beyond the sky.
I am thinking of the world tonight here on my deck amongst the sleeping trees. They say you should be the change you want to see in the world. So I am being fully human, fully sad, and fully amazed at our collective follies: still old men send young ones to die, still people believe that their myths entitled them to kill those who believe in other myths, still people believe that someone other than themselves can save or destroy them, still we think we are better than those in far away lands, the next block or the wrong jeans. We kill, enslave and ignore all that frightens us - even ourselves.
I believe that our salvation is ours to find - alone. We will not find it in books or hand grenades. In alters or stupas or mosques or malls. The Christ. The Buddha. The Talmud. The Dali Lama. Mohammad. All know something, but their salvation is not ours. They cannot do it for us.
Even the sleeping trees, however beautiful, cannot.
As Leonard Cohen sings:
I know I said I’d meet you,
I’d meet you at the store,
But I can’t buy it, baby.
I can’t buy it anymore.
And I don’t really know who sent me,
To raise my voice and say:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth some day.
But this too is just a myth.
And this is why Lin Chi said: "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha."
Thanks beyond earth and sky to you. Namaste.
TAGS:
Buddha
Leonard Cohen
Lin Chi
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