enlightenment

ben goertzel





Morning sunrise on my eyelids
wetness in the air
Mosquitoes on my forehead

In what damp jungle have I awakened?
In what primordial valley?

I open my eyes and find myself lying
Beneath a carpet of trees

The monkey sits beside me, speaks:

"The dharma of the dharma is that there is no dharma,"

The truth of the truth is that there is no truth

"But if the dharma of the dharma is that there is no dharma,
Then the dharma of this non-dharma dharma
cannot be the dharma
so the dharma has no dharma
and so there is not any dharma at all"

That's what he says

No truth, no core, no center to being

No meaning in pretentious Sanskrit words:
or  meandering English ones
or even monkey shrieks

I awaken to see the truth
that there is no truth at all 
and my eyes pop out from their sockets
wondering what it is they're looking at
how this nonexistent world
shines out in such brilliant hues of pink, green, red
blue, yellow, black, white, purple
and so many wonderful shapes
and frightening ones
cognitions of mind and sensations
of flesh

"What of that, monkey?"
I request angrily
"The fuck with dharmas, the fuck with dharmas,
what about realities, externalities, what about seeing feeling 
hearing eating fucking drinking running walking working typing
fighting playing phoning faxing driving flying and on and on
and on, somehow on, nohow on, the actual presence of the
universe as manifested in every existing moment of my
motherfucking life!"

The monkey climbed up into a tree,
taking with it my breakfast

"Bring back my banana, you little furry asshole,"
I scream at him uselessly
"You stole that from my backpack!"

I watch him sit there on the 
tree branch
Eating it happily
And I am enlightened

(Not)