Early morning,
Grey clouds,
Cold breeze,
Silent mind.

Stray thoughts
Come and go.
Calmly breathe,
Back to now.

No self,
No mind,
No ‘me’,
No ‘you’.

No hope,
No goal,
No gain,
Just sit.

_/|\_

Quiet house aronund me,
Sound of water in the distance.
Birds sing softly out the window.
I sit and let the “now” just be.

The sound of thunder
From a summer storm,
I gently touch
And let it go.

The scent of cooking
From my mother’s kitchen,
I gently touch
And let it go.

A miriad lights reflected
On a river from my childhood,
I gently touch
And let it go.

I sit and breathe,
A simple witness
To a thousand thoughts,
And let them go.

A gentle breeze,
A flutter of leaves,
The sound of running water
In the distance.

A fleeting moment
Gone before we notice,
Our whole life,
an instant.

Felling the sun
Warming up my skin,
I open my eyes
And fill them with now.

Exactly when was it that I forgot?

Can I still recall?

The old sword is asleep
While the armor rusts away in silence.

I sit… and I remember.

Birth, death,
Calm and stillness,
Movement and change,
Never and now.

Everything flows,
Everything crumbles,
Reassembles itself,
Always, and never the same.

Sitting in the early morning light,
Smell of incense floating in the air.
Wooden Buddha smiles in front of me.

As the bell chimes I open my eyes.
Calm and present, I return the smile.

Raindrops race each other
Down the window pane,
I watch in childish wonder
At the trails they leave behind.

Thoughts come back to here,
Mind comes back to now,
As the sudden roll of thunder
Breaks the morning air.