Hi all,

I wanted to share a poem my father wrote during a recent retreat. It impacted me pretty strongly from a spiritual standpoint--hopefully you'll like it as well.


Enlightenment Came With the Rain

What I have always been, but never realized, came with the rain.
The true nature streamed from the sky,
From above, as blessings do.

No cares now, only the rain pattering.
What pleasure to be free of mind’s choices,
To perceive without attachment.

Without hoping for perfection or fearing its loss
Mind is satisfied with itself,
Like the rain uncaring if it drizzles or pours.

In my 70th year, white haired and slow of mind
Fruition fell like water from the clouds
Sweeping this old man into the never born.

Without contrivance, the me that isn’t me,
Is perfect from beginning less time, its heart beats and breathes
As fitting in their rhythm as the tapping rain.

Everything is as it should be, without need for change,
Except for the positions taken toward it.
So it is, when all returns to emptiness.

On the true path, simply get out of the way,
Leave mind and its occurrences unimpeded
Like water poured into water, emptiness into emptiness.

Allow mind to rest in its perfection, like rain in pools
And the blessings of the Incomparable Ones
Will stream into your heart.

Though effortless in fruition, it is effortful in preparation
So practice steadfastly through the seasons.
Be a lake unmoving beneath the wind whipped waves.

Allow neither the ice nor snow of loneliness
Nor the pelting rains of ambition and fear
Disturb the depths you are.

In the equanimity of what remains unmoved in the moving,
Find peace and restfulness.
Waves and what lies beneath are water, thoughts and mind nothingness.

Having been taught by the great teachers of the past and present,
My root guru, and my heart, the Vidyadhara, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
And my mind which is not different from that heart, and which is not mine, thinks of Padmasambhava,

Amazed by the great skill of him,
Who turned experience into words,
Reality into its closest likeness.

When one finds they have become,
Without anything to become or anything that becomes, what his insight describes
They realize how to be one with nothing.

Rain falls steadily like the scraping of this pen.
And like this hand,
Nothing guides it.

Having taken time from perfection to write about it
I write as the rain falls,
Uncontrived, without goal.

What these words say are less important
Than the effortlessness that pervades them
For it points best to the mind they arise in.

Whether this is of benefit or not is of no concern,
Since lack of intent is the greatest benefit.
All else detracts from things as they are.

May the spontaneous rain of wisdom continue to fall,
May it wash away the slime and muck of grasping and fixation
May all sentient beings find their true nature reflected in it.

Written on September 12, 2012, while in retreat by Tsultrim Serri (Fred H. Meyer MD)