Beyond Compliance, Beyond Resistance
When asked once who his greatest spiritual teacher
had been the Dalai Lama responded, “China.”
The cat’s reactions to my fingers’
scratching, remind me I’m often
automatic: twitching skin of each
thank-you-very-much, arched back
of jockeying for a slender compliment,
submissive flop-and-grovel of every
please, please, please. But then
that prance of defiance across
the invisible piano wire spanning
table to out-of-bounds countertop
to stove controls, my dainty paws,
claws approximately withdrawn,
picking out the touch-pad tune of
bake, broil, clean, clock, and cancel.
Lately I’ve been working on my
up-and-walk-away, my saunter
and dusty-sandal forefoot flick,
my vertical tail-like-a-flag of
nonchalance—which I plan to plant
somewhere pacifistic, somewhere
beyond this rage against my own Beijing.
Let It Go, Buddha
Let it go, Buddha
keeps telling me, still so
attached to detachment
that veins I imagine
at his temples throb
like the chanting
of ancestors on a CD
I bought cheap for $7.97.
For once again I’ve had
the wrong idea: Calvi-
tholicism’s indissoluble
oil slick floating on
Buddha’s smooth sea
of equanimity. Try
as I might – and, well,
there it is, attached at
the straining hip of effort.
Zen Master Seung Sahn says
wanting enlightenment’s
a big mistake. I say
add it to the list:
the first marriage,
the first religion,
the second – trying
to save the whole world
with words.
