"Make of yourself a light,"
I used to hear
from Buddha's long-lost lips
each day as I woke before dawn
in this mountain hermitage.
The five-peaked jeweled mountain
Kanchenjunga
towers over the Darjeeling horizon
as I start a fire for tea
and prepare my morning prayers.
Kalu Rinpoche, 1973
~~~
Painting: Monty & Cookie
2 comments:
I've been thinking about the grounded qualities of Kalu Rinpoche's practice. We may be encouraged to "make a light of ourselves", like a Buddha. We may look out over an amazing horizon, a landscape of peaked and jeweled mountains,and begin to realize that this terrain exists within us, too. And yet, the realization rarely begins at the top of the mountain. It begins by building a fire and making tea. It begins each morning as we tirelessly "Begin again." Further, there truly is nothing to achieve, and no where to go that we aren't already in full measure.
And yet... we begin again, right where we are.
Simply beautiful :) And true as the morning. It reminds me of the story of a traveler coming at last to the wise old man in the mountain cave.
"Why have you come?" the old man asked.
"I am looking for God." the traveler said.
"Where have you looked that He was not?" said the old man.
Peace and Many Blessings!
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