Unspoken Word
January 02, 2022
IF YOU WANT TO LOVE ME

If you want to love me,
love yourself first,
if you want to love yourself first,
love me.
When you understand this, oh precious one,
everything will begin to make sense,
all doors will open
all windows, hearts, and minds,
nothing left to own, but yourself,
nowhere else to go,
you having arrived a long, long, time ago.
Here's as simple as it gets:
love is the absolute center of the universe,
everything revolves around it,
everything.
Einstein understood this,
one of the reasons, no doubt,
he always seemed to be on the verge of something,
his hair the only proof he needed,
that, and his ridiculous love for the violin.
But, if perchance, you should ever lose your way,
the original orbit you came here with
and find yourself, as they say,
drifting into the far reaches of space, no one to hold you,
know this:
every cell in your body is a standing ovation before God.
Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
Let them all sing out, I say --
let the massive choruses of joy and longing deep within you
fully express themselves.
Understand, without thinking,
that everything, exactly as it is now, is perfect,
a gift.
You remember, of course,
the two monks who were arguing, one fine summer day
about whether or not it was the wind or the flag that was moving,
both of them very sure of their position on the matter.
That's when they asked for the sage counsel of their Master,
"Neither," he said.
"Neither the flag is moving, nor the wind.
Your mind is moving."
What he didn't say,
in his grand tradition of keeping everything as simple as possible:
was this:
There is an unsung scripture in every drop of water,
an unplayed symphony inside of each and every breath.
How many Zen Buddhists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None.
There is no light bulb
and there are no Zen Buddhists,
even this poem doesn't exist,
which makes everything so much easier --
"the stage upon which the heart can dance,"
I once heard Prem Rawat say,
no dance steps to follow, no lessons,
no one to lead except yourself
which, of course, brings us to the nameless,
sacred space between in breath and out.
If, indeed, there is no one to follow except yourself,
who, then, is following whom?
who leads
and who follows?

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at January 2, 2022 02:46 PM

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“I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.”
— John Cage

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