Expounding: Carrying on with the Inquiry

The great challenge continues,
The quest never ending;
To get to the end
Makes no sense,
For how could that be?

What end could there be?
An end to this individual life,
Probably
But what is that?

Right now, I could not say,
Am uncertain but unconcerned,
The light of existence burns,
Inside and outside,

The fire goes out
And the ashes cool,
Until no heat’s left over,
Neither a flicker nor a sputter,

Not even a stick stirred
Through the mucky mess remaining
Reveals any sparks
Or heat retaining;

And yet, does not the potential remain,
For another flame,
To arise from the dark?
Is there a brand new blaze in waiting?

And if so, what would it be?
Could it be me?
Or something completely different?
Will I be here to see?

Or if not, who else?
And when?
Twill it be somebody close at hand
Or in a completely different land?

Expound: Unbounded

The hardest insight
To come by,
The pinnacle of all,
Or so I humbly suggest,

Is that everything
Is Nirvana
And so,
Even suffering is Nirvana,

Not suffering is Nirvana,
All the conditioned phenomena
That are classified
As being suffering,

These too are Nirvana,
The very aches and pains,
Frustrations and irritations
That we so dislike,

All of these too
Are nothing but
Nirvana itself
But it’s so difficult to fathom,

Particularly,
When one is in it,
Up to the chin
In dire circumstances,

This is the great and tricky feat,
To be overwhelmed,
All sanity overturned,
Every moment excruciatingly upended,

To yearn for relief
And yet to see even in this yearning,
The truth of release,
The ultimate understanding,
That this too is ‘it!’

Expository: Swimming

The answer,
The simple answer
To
Life, the universe and everything,

To me
It would have to be
Something that
Was not contingent upon anything,

It would need to be
Something that
Never changed,
Nor withered;

What could that be?
I don’t have to tell you
Because you already know it
And all you have to do is

Ask the question,
What is it
That is not contingent upon anything
And that remains unchanged?

You could say it’s change,
Or you could say the deathless
Or you could say reality,
It matters not what you call it,

What matters is
That you see it,
Clearly discern it
And this is the difficulty.

It’s so simple,
So obvious,
So ubiquitous,
The very water in which we swim
And that we are (whatever that is!)