ON ATTAINING BUDDHAHOOD IN THIS LIFETIME

[Pravin Kumar]

On Attaining Buddhahood In This Lifetime

Loosely based on a letter, with the same title, by Nichiren
a 13th century Japanese Buddhist master.

To free yourself from the suffering of birth and dying,
You must perceive the Mystic Truth of being,
That it’s inherent Awareness on which you’re relying,
For all sensations and thoughts to be seeing.

This is the Mystic Law of the mutual relation
Between this moment, phenomena and the life-force,
Consciousness at rest and in manifestation,
Awareness and Cosmic Energy, the ‘causeless cause’.

If you think this Mystic Truth is outside yourself,
You are embracing a vastly inferior teaching,
Discover Awareness – your essential Self,
Or for Buddhahood you’ll always be reaching.

Investigation of this moment to moment experience
Reveals mind/body to be an objective flow,
Of thoughts and sensations in Awareness, whence
In this still presence they come and they go.

Practices will not the suffering of birth and death relieve,
Unless you perceive the true nature of your life,
Rather than external seeking find That which cannot leave,
Your inherent essence, Awareness, beyond all strife.

By chanting, meditating, reciting sutras and such,
You may gain benefit, merit, and of mind some peace.
But compared to Awakening these are not much
For when attaining Buddhahood all anxieties cease,

Not mental and physical pain inherent in existence,
But the burdens of illusory separate selfhood.
No self, just a flow of objects in the still essence,
This is the Mystic Truth of Buddhahood.

A new poem based on a chapter of 'Ripples In The Lake Of Eternity'.

Colin Drake