As the first light of morning touched me out in the tall, wet grasses I was thinking of Buddha when he sat under the Bo tree and touched his fingers to the Earth---that unwavering commitment to fully BE HERE. I think of this often when I am out at that time and I feel the Sun so slowly begin to light up my skin and spread colors all over the Earth, while the birds bathe my body in their ecstatic greetings. Long ago, following years of spontaneous fugue states and unasked for confusing visions, the first time I intentionally and in a disciplined manner sought a wisdom guide in Spirit I had no expectations of who I might meet. I was so ignorant at the time of so very much, and little has changed in that way since.
When I had almost given up trying, when nothing was occurring except the incessant doubts and arguments in my mind, the startling presence of Buddha rose in my vision. So, so vast and unbelievably dense--I couldn't comprehend how there could be enough space in all creation to hold such a Presence as this. I was so surprised to be met by such a one, as at the time I had no experience with any of the forms of Buddhism or knew anything about its complex history and lineages. I had no idea, really, of what to say, ask, or how to even be, I was so overwhelmed by the shift in my field of experience. But suddenly the question just burst from me, "Why are YOU here?" And very simply, clearly received the reply, "To bring you equanimity with all that occurs." Ever since that time, I never get visited by Buddha the God-self; but that young man, Siddhartha Gautama comes, sometimes with flowers in his hair, but more often troubled, tired, naked; his lean brown muscles gleaming with sweat wherever his skin isn't covered in dirt. I LOVE this young man and his great, great heart.....All of which is my prelude to this Mary Oliver poem that was running through my mind out in the earliest morning sun....
THE BUDDHA'S LAST INSTRUCTION
"Make of yourself a light,"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal--a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire----
clearly I'm not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.