SAMMĀ KAMMANTA (RIGHT ACTION)

RIGHT ACTION

When you throw yourself
down from the top of high mountains,
the Earth does not take you
into her arms
and comfort you.

When you kneel
and kiss the ground,
the Earth does not praise
your humility.

It is for this reason
that she is called
‘The Great Mother’.

Every moment
is a fork in the road.
And every fork
is always the same:
the choice between right and wrong.

The wrong is always
arrogating to oneself
things which do not belong
to oneself.

The right is always
following the Light.


        *  *  *


Time drifts away
as mist fades on mountain.
The world itself is hardly more substantial.
Living water springs
from life’s fountain
yet it runs dry,
leaving powdering bones
bleaching in the sun.

Molecules of arm and leg and brain
are rebels and would all be free again.
The whole pageant of our days and hours
runs only till we lose our feeble powers.

As children we play out our days
with sandcastles and fantasies
until the turning tides erase
what we work so hard to raise,
struggle to protect and call our own –
fragments of things, at very best, on loan.

Upwards our thoughts might usefully aspire;
nothing down here needs building any higher.

Deal justly with your neighbour
and make of him your friend
and in your inner garden, labour
until you reach your end.



New Project: SAMMĀ ĀJIVA (RIGHT LIVELIHOOD)