In gratitude to the luminous spirit
and profound teaching of Thích Nhất Hạnh

Stuck in traffic,
as a seed of irritation
germinated in my thoughts,
I asked myself
“What would Thay do?”

I remembered, then,
that I had been given a gift,
the time to simply breathe,
relaxing, doing nothing,
as I let the sights
and sounds of the day
wash over me,
bathing in the moment,
grateful and content.

I was walking on a long path,
trying to get somewhere.

Suddenly I stopped,
and I was in a beautiful place!

I will never find
a lasting peace
outside myself,
in this world.

Right now,
on these streets,
the constant jangle
of people and machines,
the chaos of culture
and technology,
seem to assault me.

But the loudest noise
comes from within me -
a string of commentary,
constantly critiquing
the kind of world
I didn’t ask for.

In this stream
(the flow of my own resistance),
all the sound and bustle
become a torrent,
torturous,
tumultuous,
and I am swept along,
as if against my will.

But there is no torrent,
except in the tumble
of my own thoughts.

Beyond them,
behind them,
there is only silence,
a peace that I may glimpse
when I give up the fight,
and let the world be
as it is.

Love isn’t like gold -
it’s not a treasure
to be hoarded,
or valued
for its scarcity.

It’s more like the flame
of a solitary candle,
which, if not hidden,
spreads its light
like a wildfire,
sparking new flames
in every heart
it touches.

Precious and ubiquitous,
fragile, God-given,
it is always on the verge
of sputtering out -
from our neglect,
or the urgent breath of fear;
or being fanned -
by the gentle breath
of compassion.

Our love,
like everything we do,
lives or dies
in the web of choices
we are always making.

It is who we are,
and what we do,
when we expose the light
that shines within us.

There are people around me
always longing
to control the narrative.

And there is a voice in my head
that is always longing
to control the narrative.

All of us are caught
in a wild world web,
clamoring with voices
all striving to be
in control of the narrative.

And the narrative
is nothing but a lie,
a desparate fiction,
concealing our fear
that, without a narrative,
our lives would have no meaning.

And what if we are enough
without a narrative,
and we are entitled to be
just as we were born,
before there was a story,
when we were just ourselves,
content to be alive?

Everything that can be seen
is in the eye of the beholder.

We will never see the world whole.

Behind our eyes
are only glimpses,
only fragments,
a pale reflection
of what is.

But we may also see
ourselves looking,
see our own seeing,
until how we look
becomes as sharp and clear
as what we think we see.

Freedom
is a beautiful dream.

Maybe there has never been
a land of liberty
in the world outside,
but there may always be one
in the world inside our souls.

Freedom is a beautiful dream.

It is the dream
that points the way
to being a better human,
living in a better world.

It is a dream worth having.

And it is a dream worth living.

Regal and composed,
he sits serenely,
bound and adorned,
inured to his captivity.

He is the wild
and the sacred
in all of us,
patiently waiting
for his freedom,
ready for release.

It is we, of course,
who have bound him,
who have bound ourselves.

And these chains and fences
are merely figments,
held in place by our beliefs,
until, by Grace,
they may dissolve
in the breeze of awareness.

Grace
is what flows through us
when we get out of our own way.

When I was a younger man,
the craziest part of me
felt like the closest I could come
to being sacred.

Then, with age encroaching,
I strived to be more reasonable,
to quell my wilder impulses,
to protect myself
from the dissolution
of unfettered freedom.

And now,
as I see an end to this journey,
not as distant as it once was,
I can see the wisdom
that my younger self
could take on faith:
that we are all God’s wildest creatures,
blessed and cursed to find our way
beyond our own boundaries,
past what we think
is sane, or safe,
or reasonable.

This much I know
from the internet:
there is evil everywhere,
and everything is dangerous.

Why then,
do I walk outside
and see a world
full of beauty,
and so many people
willing to be kind?

Which is more useful:
the nightmare of our worst fears,
amplified through endless retelling,
or the dream of our true nature,
spread through the practice
of loving kindness?

We have a choice,
in what we read,
in what we say,
in what we do,
to act as if
we live in a world
we would all be happier
to live in,
until, through our vision
and our persistence,
it becomes reality
for everyone.