Because You Can Be Taken Only By Surprise

One thing that I was told about “being on the path” is that trudging there can be a distraction from easing into a state of effortlessness. Unlike ordinary reality, trying is less effective than recognizing that you are already there. Does this sound paradoxical? It is. The truth is guarded by familiar warriors of common sense. When this dawned on me, I scribbled the following 14-syllable lines:

Because you can be taken only by surprise, he waits

wherever you are not hunting for him. When you seek him

in the quiet of a temple, he lingers in a tree.

When you look in the tree, he is swirling in the river.

When you go down by the water, he sits in a café.

You order espresso. He shadows a wall somewhere else.

You wan to fix him in a form, make him stay in a place.

He wants you to stop seeking, to see instead who you are.

Well, as my meditation teacher might say at this point, “who is asking the question? “ Here starts the hard work of seeing through the you whom you think you are. Or as the therapist says at the very end of Portnoy’s Complaint,” “so now vee may perhaps to begin?”