Take off the backpack
Lie down in the long grass.
Pull up the blue sky-blanket.
Rest.
So many years of Dharma practice,
Straight-spine diligence, straining toward
enlightenment.
Today.
This hillside.
Just this.
Lie down in the long grass.
Let the earth take you.
Deer track and horse dung
and the eye within the eye,
revolving and luminous.
I never knew this.
Did no one ever tell me?
I remember my Zen master in the interview room,
'Trust yourself,' he said. 'Just be yourself.'
I think his meaning was this:
Take off the backpack,
Lie down in the long grass.
Let the sky take you.
Rest.
Breathe space
into space
into space.
I never knew there was this much light!
Helen Dhara Gatling-Austin