Poetry
The Dakini on the Bank
Homage to the great merger of the mistaken mind into the lake of great emancipation.
Dearest wanderer — confused, lost — listen.
Liberation is near, although it has never been far.
Your inner voyage to touch the heart of darkness has entered its climax.
I, great wrathful sky dancer, protector of the inner state, dwell in the gap.
Between murderous civility and compassionate slaughter.
On the bank of changing consciousness, I greet pilgrims with dance and song.
My Lord, Great Emptiness stands behind me.
The great serpent of bliss carries the child of illusion from outer dualistic order to the inner station.
Where all boundaries dissolve and madness shows its playful face.
Charisma, power, great egocentricity, all notions of realisation both written and read must die.
If you see the Buddha on the side of the road, kill him.
The sage offers a last word, a dying poem to the drunk before silence overwhelms.
And non-duality displays its unruly face.
Having stared deep into the heart of darkness, he cannot but forever change.
The terrifying mystery of silence — of nothingness — haunts you.
And you will try to run.
But there is no-one to escape and nothing to escape from.
But madness is only pain if you want it to make sense.
To stay, like my love, is bondage.
Form is emptiness. Emptiness alone cannot manifest freedom.
Like tasting the meat but not the potatoes, many come and stay for the great celebration.
Here heads on sticks are offered, and naked dance and primordial sound.
Partake in flesh of human, elephant, serpent.
Drink the wine of blood and semen — primordial nectar.
Fuck without discernment.
Woman, man, child, goat, self, other, plant.
But madness is made resplendent by order — by sanity.
Stay too long and sanity becomes madness.
Bondage is defined by its pattern, not its subject.
Listen to the great whispered instruction. Take it with you.
Wanderer and King are one. All rivers are one.
Even I who guard the iron gate between relative and absolute can be seen by the world, draped in the conventions of the real.
Even prejudice, ideology, judgement are luminous perfection.
Not to mention hatred, dread, and even sorrow.
Why do you accept pleasure with joy but reject anger with contempt?
Prejudice is rooted in the mind alone.
Without it, all modes are of one taste.
Step off the river of consciousness.
Plunge into the abyss.
Bathe in its toil.
Wash off the muck of prejudice with the horror.
Trust in its terrifying embrace until every trace of sanity is eaten up.
Carry the dead illusory King with you, first as a corpse then as a teaching.
Present them to my relative aspect and speed forth the word of the supreme vehicle.
Teach the serpent of bliss as method, the dakini as supreme companion.
Teach the heart of darkness as the essence.
The dance as an expression.
Worldly order as compassion.
Teach the merging of all three.
The supreme Rupakaya for all living beings.
