Enlightenment from Siddhartha and the Others

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

 

Know first yourself.  Then, thus, the classics come.

They come from in you.  They are there inside

Your deeps.  As chords philosophers all thrum

Within you.  Buddha and Confucius stride

Beside you in your brain.  The Christ is with

Them, Moses also.  Plato knows your soul

And Zarathustra floats as double myth

That Greeks and Romans knew, the whole

Of cosmic meaning waiting for your mind

To light your way.  Some thinkers, those who fail,

Like Marx and Mao, would lead you blind

But truest you know better.  You prevail.

  One Socrates asks you to search your core.

    Reach in, in thought, and let their wisdom roar.

~ Phillip Whidden

Behold, I Give You One Commandment

 

Love first thyself.  Forget about the love

Of God and others; thinkers everywhere

Have reached this one conclusion.  Far above

Religions, which are every one a snare,

Decry this love.  This first rule first implies,

As streams imply, the truth of water.  You

Must know yourself as ancient Greeks and wise

Ones all have tried to teach.  This basic view

Allows the rest of wisdom as the root

Brings on great trunks, grown stems, green leaves,

Branched blossoms and then gradually full fruit,

In fields the harvest and the final sheaves.

  The growth of wisdom comes from what is won

    Inside your soul, the role of number one.

 

“The aim of learning is but to abolish the ‘fence’ which separates man from man.  In other words, the distinction between he and I [sic; him and me] will be abolished when we are truly educated.

“The universe and humanity are one, and my parents, brothers, and all men are myself.  Sun, moon, rain, dew, mountains, rivers, birds, animals and fish are also my self.  Therefore[,] I should love and sympathize with others, because they are my self, and not separable from me.”  ~ Nakane Tôri, born 1694

“Even the broken glass, or the fallen tree, or the cut stone gives us sorrow, because we feel they are in our minds.” ~ Oshio Chusai, born 1793