Breakfast with MoMs
Happy Solstice! A poem that wanted to be shared and well this brief check in spilled out as well.
Dear friends,
Happy Solstice! A poem that wanted to be shared and well this brief check in spilled out as well.
I am surrendering my expectations of what retreat is. What it is not. Surrendering tight and rigid views on "practice". What people will think. This may just be 5 years. This whole life might just be one big retreat. Are we not each in the center of a mandala of our own making?
Regardless, I trust in submerging this mind in Dharma day and night — free of the noise of narratives, free of algorithmic demons — and simply trusting where it will take me. In this phase, it's less of a pressure cooker and more of a crockpot of Bodhicitta.
"My religion is loving kindness" says the Dalai Lama. While "My religion is not deceiving myself" says my hero Milarepa. I find myself walking the edge of these two. I find myself asking what is truly generative of love, compassion, and truth in any moment? How can the mundane be transformed into the sublime?
Maybe thats writing a letter to a struggling friend. Maybe thats chanting to my sons and daughters struggling in hell. Maybe its resting in silence all night. When its rooted in Bodhicitta everything is practice. When it is rooted in mental afflictions I strive to let it naturally die (is the hope). Moment to moment that is my knife's edge. Maybe this is just the Bodhisattva tantra way. And sometimes, it's debatable. Boiling potatoes for the deer so they don’t get indigestion was debatable, but why shouldn't a deer eat off china instead of sand? Seriously.
But I am slowly learning to trust in a deeper awareness. There is something auspicious stirring. Call it blessings. Call is synchronicities. Call it tapping into a greater field. Call it surrendering to stillness. Or maybe even Dakini whispers. I don't really know. But I know I don really want to name it. Each one kills it. But whatever it is, it's budding. And it "Spontaneously" and coincidentally called me to the roof amongst so many other “random” things. All of that sounds so poetic, yet most of the time, I'm sitting in the dumpster of karma and afflictions that is my mind of many lifetimes.
I love you all — a little poem, from that roof the other day. May it feed your hearts, your practice and the awakening of all beings. I pray this "distraction" is a generative compassionate action creating to a greater web of goodness.
PS: I am not sure if I will do this again. But I will let the silent whispers decide.
Jampa
Breakfast with MoMs
I don't know what time it is, the magical maze of the morning ngondro has passed, and I just fed my sparrow friends their fill of mantras and sunflowers, So I guess now it's time to make my breakfast, For every morning coffee, eggs and toast at the window, convening with glowing mount Crestone, and chewing on some Lam Rim, But today, a voice strangely, and strongly whispers, and so I obey. Food can wait, For some reason, To the roof we go with our morning brew, Half encrusted in diamond glory, half shimmering tan, a yin and yang of ice and fire, Sliding to dry shore, We settle in the sky, hovering above the trees and the birds, I don't know how, But this morning is extra alive, I feel it in my spine, And I sense the birds do too. And down below, I simply admire the frolicking feast unfold, So full of joy, yet sadly, so quick to fear, in an instant fleeing to their juniper bosoms, So often reciting hollow words, "My Mother sentient beings", Yet this sublime morning, it's not wispy ideas flying, But a wet impulse of heart that sings, Ohh, my old mothers, With the eyes of this heart, I finally see you now, you fly so high, but how far you have fallen, home - but lost, constantly afraid confusion blows in the wind, My old mothers, tears feed me and I pray you too, ohh how I love you all, Yet in all this tender stew, From somewhere afar, A screech pierces bone and space, and somehow the center of this being, My dear daughter, In an instant, This mother is ready to fly to you, I don't where you are, But I am with you. My old Mothers, None of us our free, Yet auspiciously - here we are together, All children of this mountain morning, My dear old mothers, How could I ever leave you behind? Fear no more, I will never forget you.
🌕 Howls of Crestone 🌕
An unofficial collection of monthly Poems and reflections while on solitary retreat:
Sacred Songs of a Fool (audio)
Exploring sound, prayer and the sacred in a cynical world.
How Views create our worlds, Rebirth & Intuitive Wisdom.
A spicy poem & exposition Where we tackle a phoenix rising from debauchery, Boundless Impartiality, Radical Love, & Woke Culture's anti-love.
A true story of Karma and Grace shining in the desert.
Eating Potatoes to D.I.E. for we go down the potato hole of impermanence + Emptiness via Jampa's killer potatoes.