"He Is" or "On the Way to Unity"

There are so many things that we don't understand,
that we don't want to understand; 
So many truths that the mind, prisoner of itself, 
Of this cage, gilded and poisoned, 
Doesn't accept, doesn't want to accept, 
out of fear of beholding the Reality, 
Of knowing the nature of the poison, 
The sweet and alluring poison that kills in the long run.

Getaways of all kinds, 
firmly placed blinds; 
Crutches for the infirm, 
for the one whose head is too heavy, 
Stuffed with concepts, false concepts, 
and ever growing desires. 
A world where one blind leads another, 
where the mute wants to teach the deaf: 
A country where everyone judges everything, 
and everybody condemns what is not to their liking.

Who then will raise his head, who then will stand tall 
and turn all his being to the Sun? 
Who then will open his eyes 
to the luminous Path of Awakening? 
Who then will, finally, stand in front of the Omniscient 
and Omnipresent Radiance of the Clear light?

Even he whose head no longer resonates 
because of words; 
He whose body no longer suffers 
because of wounds from chains; 
He who understands that all death 
gives birth to a new life, 
Whose heart is great and open, 
free from all judgements.

Truly it is he who will understand 
the profound and hidden things, 
Who will Realise the subtle and non-dual aspects, 
of all phenomena, 
It is he who will Realise Unity.

Thus he will be, not thinking that he is, 
he will be there unattached, 
Present, but the mind in the Light. 
he will be here, down there, elsewhere, 
There, where someone questions 
with his mouth or with his heart; 
And his answer will be clear and helpful, 
just and appropriate; 
It will be words or actions, 
drawings or scriptures.

His hand will never close, 
as everything can be given to the one, 
Who wants to scale the Abrupt Path, 
Him whose Patience knows no limits, 
Him whose heart is made to give back.

The teaching is received by him 
who has created the causes; 
It is deepened by him 
who renounces the extremes; 
Understood once the head has hushed 
and the heart has opened. 
It is Realised when “one” and “the other” 
are no longer different, 
In the moment when we cease to create.

This State is near ,
and so difficult to attain; 
It is everywhere, but we project it, 
we imprison it, far away; 
We are One with it, 
but we make it different; 
It is here and now 
and we see it as distant and out of reach. 
Because stripped of judgements, 
projections and dualities,

He Is.

Written by Lama Shenpen Rinpoche

Publication by any means of those poems shall be subject to prior agreement.