SIM Experiences
Recollective Awareness in a Catholic Monastery
Seeing images of the Virgin Mary
I note that I am quite contrary,
It’s not that to religion I will not go,
Just that they’re not by Michelangelo
Whose tenderness and acuity of feeling
Has always left me reeling!
In awareness, another quality of meaning
Revealed in the labyrinth of becoming,
Here the Dharma speaks through my pen
As on the cushion, from which I always hope to ascend!
So I chisel away at my mind
Wanting always to be kind,
Touching then on hope as craving
Sometimes wondering whether I’m simply raving?
On the life of the Buddha, a purist calls Jason riffs
Unlearning abstractions through a personal sieve,
Winton, jocular, offers the counterpoint of laughter,
On this perilous raft, it can be wise to be daft.
Victor, of course, sagely nods, and nods,
‘It’s interesting,’ he muses, ‘but doesn’t it all sound odd?’
Samsara is a stormy sea –
A gem called Peter stretches through it with glee!
Margaret is the very model of tolerance and patience,
Irony her forte, tea bags the object of her concentration…
Oops! We’re not here to meditate and generate
Rather to deconstruct and renovate
This potent architecture of the mind
So rickety at times to be something of a bind,
Unbinding the great task,
Sometimes this, a dark, hard, ask.
While quietly, in Jacquelin, a quality of serenity
May this be yours – even in extremity.
Lenore weaves her magic on the practice of dana
Generosity a perfection so dear to the Buddha.
As for the rest of us, we’re a motley crew,
But in our hearts sometimes as fine as dew –
Now it is time to fare thee well,
May your merit grow and in liberation ever dwell.
Laura DeBernardi