Cultivation: Child at Play

Like a child
With a new toy
I persist in playing with,
‘What’s this?’

Going deeper
And deeper
Into the darkest places,
Asking ‘What’s this?’

Looking at the biggest fears,
Quite unhappily at first, but then
Once again it occurred to me,
‘What’s this?’

Smiling and laughing,
I looked even more closely
At these,
Continuing to ask, ‘What’s this?’

Knowing I’m getting repetitive,
Like a child who gets fascinated by
A certain sound, or word or phrase
And can’t stop repeating it;

The adults get so annoyed sometimes,
Perhaps because they’ve forgotten
The bliss of playing with
Something like, ‘What’s this?’

But now I’m remembering
What joy there was in
Such simplicity,
Such pleasure in, ‘what’s this?’

‘How long will this last?’ I wonder,
And then, ‘what is this wondering?
How does it feel to wonder so?’
And on and on, for as long as
‘This’ lasts, and beyond.

Criterion: ‘What’s This?’

Stacking my three cushions
In the usual way,
And setting the timer
For twenty minutes,

I sat the body down
And assumed my customary posture,
Aiming for stability
And attentiveness.

‘What shall I do this time?’
‘What’s this?’ Came the unexpected reply,
And my attention turned
Towards what was happening in the body.

‘What’s this?’
The label-thought arose spontaneously,
And then gazing towards that thought,
‘What’s this?’ I inquired.

Then it occurred to me to
Turn towards the turning towards
And labeling and noticing process,
And ask ‘What’s this?’

Who knew that such bliss
Could arise from simply asking, ‘What’s this?’
And then, looking towards that bliss,
‘What’s this?’

A sense of flow arose too,
‘Flow? What’s this?’
The bliss turned into rapture,
‘Rapture? What’s this?’

The bell sounded, but the enjoyment of
‘What’s this?’ persisted all evening;
Such relaxation! Such ease!
Has not been felt in these parts
For many a day!

Crisp: Housecleaning

Steeped in brooding,
Deeply despondent
And loathing everything,
Pushing away from the nightmare,

Trying to break through
The heaviness,
But only sinking even further
Into listlessness;

Concluding, ‘Oh, the futility of even trying,
As the gloom goes on to the horizon;’
These moods, these dark attitudes,
As thick as the cloud bank zooming past

That from my window
I viewed with dismay, thinking,
‘Oh, woe! How will I ever
Be able to get through this?’

Then suddenly
It occurred to me,
‘But these same clouds
Inhabit the sky.’

All words and thoughts fled
As if swept away by the wind,
And the spaciousness inside
Extended in all directions,

And then I saw that my mind too was
As wide as the infinite sky!
But then again, I saw the despair,
That it was still there, oh yes!

And so were the clouds,
But they no longer seemed
Separated from the blue,
I could now see how these two exist:
Intermingled and yet distinct.