Who's Your Teacher Now?

You took up meditation out of weariness.
All you really wanted was a good night’s sleep.

Sick of yelling "shut up!" at your own mind.
Needed to oil the rusty gears in your solar plexus.
But then somehow a wave of grace, of pure attention,

spilled your gasping heart onto the shores

of the present moment, and you became

a silent witness, gazing over breakers and troughs

of the past and future, watching them subside

into a single tear of oceanic gratitude.
That's when the rhythm of stillness arose,

not in the dance of the goddess, but in honor

of your own footsteps on the sand
exquisitely spiraling into pathlessness.
Who’s your teacher now?
The cluster of plum blossoms nodding

on a naked twig in late Spring snow?
A vanishing hummingbird who suddenly
awakens a deeper emptiness inside you?
The next inhalation, grazing your chest

with moonlit wings? Now it seems,

no matter how busy you are,

all your gestures are a single bow.
Follow the one who leaves no footprints.

Let the pulse in your throat be the guru.

When you need a prayer, a sutra, just sing:

"You are the breather, I am the breath.”
Don’t you know that those who stop seeking

are anointed by a royal Presence?

You don’t need to lose your way,

your way loses you, and a golden flower,

filigreed with starlight, softly blossoms

in your belly, the very form of the mind’s

silence. How can I be sure?

I have tasted the honey, where the stars

and planets come from, the glistening

sweetness of the uncreated.
I have tasted the honey of the master's glance.
I know where it is stored.
In your body, my friend, in your body.

Plum Tree and Camellia by Tatsuya