Change is upon me
Moving through me
Mind like the weather… wait five minutes and it will change

No need to respond to this fixing, griping thought—
it is about to move into open space
and compassion

I know this because it is happening all the time
It is like the roses that smell more beautiful with raindrops
I trust this because I am experiencing it

Uncomfortably open
I am rejoicing

********************************************************************************* Belief is not required,
you might even say it's discouraged
There are no missionaries
sewing clothes for the natives
no baked bean suppers
or pancake breakfasts
Nothing to lie awake
masticating, equivocating
or agnosticating over

There are no supreme beings
to worship or whimper to
no deities to die for
or to kill for
The gods,
if you could call them that,
are foolish, faulty
and a little scary
just like you and me

It asks only
that you sit with an open mind
And let Buddha, dharma,
karma, sangha
this realm, that realm
rama lama ding dong
float in and out of your neurons
until it all makes sense

or not

It requires only
that you question everything
that you keep your eyes open
and your mouth shut
So you can glimpse your life
before it slips around the corner
So you can listen to your heart
and hear how it listens to everyone else’s
So you can smell the rain
and taste the sky

And all the buddhas and bodhisattvas,the tulkus and rinpoches
lined up like a row of saffron dominos
snaking through time
will tell you
there is no such thing as a true story
as a dogma
as a true religion
and there is nobody to believe it,
the belief and the believer are gone

And you,
you are not a noun,
but a verb
you are on a twelve step program to

nowhere
and at the top step
you walk off,
like wily coyote
into thin air

Freefall through vast blue space
and die laughing


**Both poems published in Shambhala Sun magazine. For more information and much wisdom go to http://www.shambhalasun.com/