The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume One (63 page)

In the garden of lusts craving burgeons,

The darkness of sin lies thick on the crumbling field;

The flames of the age of darkness flare in the place of terror

And Chögyam only is left.

Drops of blood cover the bamboo leaf

And a terrible wind from the graveyard scatters the name of the dead.

The accents of the land echo even in heaven;

Now my world is only a name.

The wind howls in the dark wood

And the wheeling birds have nowhere to settle;

Whom can I tell, when the beautiful pine tree

Cracks with her cones and comes splintering down.

Death leers up from under the earth;

Remembering the love of the only beloved

I fall to the ground, and my cries fill every direction.

And O, the white child, and his mother with her bracelets of turquoise,

Appears in a moment, and “welcome, welcome” cries.

(Ask still the same question concerning the stain on the mirror.)

Here in this alien place the orphan stands naked,

Preparing to find and to found a new fatherland,

Licking the honey that flows from the glistening hives.

So fair, and yet not the moon,

So bright, and yet not the sun,

More perfectly set than the stars in the heaven,

I saw in her beauty the whole of the universe,

And you I took as a friend, with love.

If it is the moon in the sky—

quite enough to show your smiling gesture.

If it is the moon in your mind—

How then to show your smiling gesture?

I have no pride

in being a unicorn

if you consider this carefully

you might be able to

relax your struggle.

Even if he is the prince of a kingdom

trust him and ask him some questions.

Since he is a human being

You’ll be able to get some answers.

If one recollects suffering

of arrow piercing into the heart

one should remember the beloved one

and compare the feelings.

If you have a sharp sword

learn to cut off the life of your enemy

If you have doubt in your mind

who’s going to cut that uncertainty?

Whatever comes out of the mind,

regard not that as poetry.

When the true poetry comes,

no such question exists.

Yesterday I returned from the battlefield

Since then I’m able to rest

Please do not hope that today

I’ll be able to defeat more enemies.

The moon rises, the sun has set

planets rotate in their orbit

Yet the heavens will not change

This we discover in each other.

Do not hope for too much—

results might bring painful disappointment

If you remain without any doubts

That is the wish-fulfilling gem.

I have no name

but others call me “the nameless one.”

How can one escape imprisonment

and burst the chains of concept?

1969

In the wilds of the Deer Park in Sarnath

There are the monasteries and shrines, relics of Buddhism.

A stray dog finds a wounded deer lying in a shed

And licks it in an attempt to try and heal the wound,

But the interior damage is impossible to reach with this automatic act of the tongue.

Look! Look! There is a burning heart;

The flames like sunset or an eclipse of the sun,

The dark red of the end of an eclipse.

Some kind-hearted person runs to the nearest telephone

But there is no rescue, no doctor who can extinguish this fire without body,

Though it is courageous at least to try to hold on to the heart.

Yet it is deeply sad that he had to let it go this far.

What is compassion? What is love?

When the lover and the love become one in the simplicity of the present.

Still pain and pleasure lie in the midst of a bundle of steel wool

And light and dark live in the midst of lamentation.

Who helps—because the savior and the victim both need help.

The dog patiently tries to heal the wound of the deer of Sarnath.

The burning sun dries up not only the trees, plants, and streams, but a whole continent.

Who will make the rain?

Who will invoke the clouds?

Where is the formless form of compassion,

The compassion of Avalokiteshvara?

March 12, 1969

Who is lost?

And who lost?

In any case, never discovered;

But there remains complete devotion.

It seemed not necessary to find where one should attach oneself as object of devotion.

In the highland where the wild animals patiently graze

On grass which is dry,

Merely waiting for the fresh greenness to grow.

Biting cold wind which is more than memory,

With a heartless, cutting snowstorm.

Wild geese sing in the distance,

Aimlessly, the fox and jackals run about.

A hardened traveler on horseback rides across the horizon.

Beautiful things, all these.

Yet impenetratingly desolate.

It is almost hard to see the inspiration to enjoy the scene.

But someone noticed these,

Even to the movement of tiny grasses blown by the cold wind.

Completely intoxicated by you,

This longing for Padma Tri-me.

There is nothing to conceal,

Yet hardly anything to expose

For my faith and devotion is beyond word or melody of music.

A kind that no one would be able to hear or understand.

It is beautiful to grow with this loneliness,

Since it is your aloneness which inspires and drives me into selfless action.

The echo of your voice is heard.

The expression of your face is seen.

But when I become acquainted with these, There is no more longing,

But the infinite compassion is inherited by your son.

You thrust upon me this weight.

I know it will remain as burden

Until I see your face in me,

And hear your voice from everywhere.

This is you Padma Tri-me:

Ornamented with yogi costumes,

Dancing on a cloud,

Singing in the language of dakinis—

You are the fire and water,

You act as the earth and the space

Which accommodate the infinite.

March 28, 1969

So much for love.

In the state of meditation and openness

There comes duhkha;

Suffering is the nature of

Samsara.

The old traveler,

Stumbling with his stick’s support

Makes the journey of pilgrimage.

Each step is not perfect.

Walking on the desert sand,

His foot slips as he walks.

Slow and long

On the arduous journey

He hears the sound of the

Grains of sand

Yet firmly plants his steps

In the sand

As his support.

Of course, I know—

Of course, it is shown to me—

Of course, there’s no doubt—

The play of dakinis

Is always there.

In love

I feel both pain and pleasure

Which is quite clearly seen

In the nature of dakinis.

Sometimes it is tedious,

Tedious because you’re hopeful,

Hopeful for something to happen.

Sometimes it is creative

And your heart is open

To creativity.

These two manifestations

Are clearly seen

Alternatively,

Pain and pleasure alike.

It is what is.

That is what I have found.

In pain there’s no sickness

Because pain is aroused

By creative forces.

Thanks to dakinis.

The same goes for pleasure,

The same goes for love.

Love is something profound

Something deeper—

In fact it’s the flow

Of the universe.

Without love nothing is created.

I’m lying in bed as a patient.

Beside me is the quadrapod

Which helps me to walk.

There are so many friends

Who are longing to give

Their own health for my recovery.

Still it is the play of love.

Here I see that love

Consists of both pleasure and pain.

Love is the expression or gesture

Of apparent phenomena.

It is painful as though someone

Controlled the beat of my heart,

As though someone had stolen my heart.

But underneath lies inspiration.

So I discover

That she who has stolen my heart

Is the true Shakti

Who removes all possessiveness.

People can die for love

Quite involuntarily.

People have such courage in love.

Pain and pleasure are one in love.

For it includes negative thoughts,

Possessiveness,

Impermanence.

This love and the nature of love

Can never be changed

By anyone.

It is the dance of the dakinis.

It is the dance of the Kagyü lineage.

As historically Gampopa,

Living in a monastery,

The father of the Kagyü school,

Let loose his three precious

Chief disciples,

Let them dance and

Compose music

In the state of ecstasy.

I’ve said so much

In this poem.

But a poet’s mind

Can never stop composing.

He identifies himself with the play of dakinis