Darkness Brings Its Own God

By Sajeeva Samaranayake -

Sajeeva Samaranayake

Worldly currents that solidify
Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha
Are simply worldly currents
They are not
Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha

To see things as they are
You have to get into
No man’s land
Become nobody
Not another becoming, but
The end of all trips
Giving up your last possession
To regain your true identity
This is our original state
The ‘state’ we lost
The nation we lost
The religion we lost
The independence we lost

All our problems are other human beings;
All our solutions, External Gods
From condoms and net nannys to facebook, twitter
Human rights and all other mod cons right down to
Buddha and beyond –
Each and every one of those is an External God.
External because they are separate from us and
Gods because they are absolutes we take refuge in.
These are Gods that save us from
The bother, of taking responsibility for our own lives

Hide your emptiness
With statues and flags
Symbols and words
Be a Buddhist
Don’t ever let go

Hide your emptiness
With knowledge and conventions
Technical jargon
Stand up for human rights
Don’t ever sit down

Both of you are empty
As the road to Mars
Your fight is a dream
Wake up! Wake up!
Say this prayer
You to me are everything
You to me are nothing
Love is everything
Wisdom nothing
Dance, dance in between

Darkness
Brings its own Gods
To rule us
From within

Be distracted
For a while
With their artificial
Lights and shades

We are all the same
But some of us keep
The silence
Detached from the flow
See all things end like
Old leaves
Falling from a tree
Over and over again

You are either with us or against us!
Said George Bush
We got Bin Laden!
Said Barack Obama
You must die!
Said Anders Behring Breivik
Don’t play
With fire
What started there
Will burn here
Non separation is
The law

Say goodbye to all these thoughts
Face the universe alone
Then find that you are
Not alone
Find that you are
Everything

Ideas overlook human beings
Human beings ignore ideas
Theory differs from practice
Ideals don’t meet reality
Welcome to
The way things are…

Winning at violence
Did not make us more intelligent

True intelligence
Is non violence
Asokan equality
Fearlessness of four lions
Conquering emotion
Ever present – facing the future
Without a backward glance

There was no war
There is no peace
All these are but – conceptualized illusions
Generalizations you don’t know
Unite with what is
Unite with who you are

Everything comes to zero
So draw a zero around
All your smart calculations
Nothing, nobody ever became one
In this interdependent Universe
So set this ‘one’ free
Don’t put limits to your limitless capacity

If you become One
How would you say ‘Buddham saranam gachchami’
How would you follow Buddha
Into the land of zero?