"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....
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields...
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves...
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...
~ Mary Oliver, excerpts from "The Buddha's Last Instruction" in HOUSE OF LIGHT
This room was a sacred space, a place that he had chosen to make especially his own, a place redeemed from mere "use" in which he would make a conscious attempt to be at rest and to put a part of his life in order. In short, this was the evidence that the man was able to pray.
~ from A DRESSER OF SYCAMORE TREES by Garret Keizer
