Loving Deep

The sun’s love sets oceans ablaze,

sprinkles fields with wild-growing flowers,

has trees deepening roots, spreading wings.

We see the array of nature’s offerings:

they are gleaming, growing, taking the love

and honouring it through pure acts of being.

And we? We too are the recipients

of all the love the sun has to give,

and it has all of it, and gives it freely.

We, too, absorb, grow, and breathe,

and mark the passages of our lives.

When did we stop understanding

that we are at heart love’s creatures,

that nothing is demanded of us

but that we find a way to live as an expression

of this love as fully and freely as we can?

May we gather together in the blanket of love,

and and cherish what is given to us in abundance,

and dedicate ourselves to loving deep,

loving wild, loving pure, without end.

 

– Tammy Takahashi

I. You. Love

I will take my gaze far,
but I will not lose sight of you,
I will not stop searching
for the source of your strength
as I climb into my own,
I will honour each of your breaths,
that takes and gives
and reminds me of the power
of perfect presence.
I will sense the expansion
that is possible in our union,
even if I forget for a time
and think that freedom
lies on distant shores.
I will always come back
and know what opens
in the infinite space between us,
in the space between
our foreheads touching,
eyes meeting,
hearts coming closer.
I will, like a great warrior,
fight each of my dizzying fears
to allow them to come closer,
and I will thank you for waiting,
as you have, as we will,
and so it goes, this well of love.

– Tammy Takahashi

A Perfect Love

Love Is

There is love in the face of it,
on the whole of it,
between the cracks of it,
on the surface of it,
when we think we are looking
for the answers to the hardest questions,
it is love,
when we wonder what lies
over the rainbow,
and give up in despair
because the golden pastures
seem so far away,
it is love that is there,
and it has never not been.
Love is not hiding; nor are we.
We are searching for it
in all of its guises,
we are in the process;
we laugh, cry, scream, wonder,
roar from the belly in anger,
twist and rise and howl like a tornado
in the pining for something
sensed, barely known.
And the eye of the storm is love,
and the aftermath of the terror is love,
and the dawn before the break of day
might just be when we can feel love
most palpably, in its purest form,
before it all unsettles and blows away,
so we can soak it in, lap it up,
be a body full sun-soaked love,
imbibing the love that is imbued
with the love of all the distant lands,
and we can be fierce in our protection
of love and all it stands for,
and we can bow in gratitude, humble, awed,
as love fills the pink-streaked sky at day’s end,
contemplating what has been lost,
knowing love never is.

– TS

It’s Always Love.

Garlands of red and white,

deities marking the path, creating joy,

inspiring reverence and contemplation,

our place in the scheme of things,

until we come to a reflection on

being for instead of just being,

or being why,

 

And the path becomes more clear,

and as it does, it comes at you

from all sides, the signs of your tomorrows,

now that there is a reason,

and the obstacles are removed

and the path is cleared,

because it’s always only been love.

 

– TS

Cosmic Connection

if i could,

as a lilypad holds her flower

to the light

giving her the space of her freedom,

allowing her awareness of the depths below

while keeping safe from submergence,

i, for you,

would move to the edge of all things

so we can dance,

two free beings,

feeling the full force

of our cosmic

connection.

 

– TS

We Are Gold: A Poem

our gilded days

and we are –

an imperfect yet holy

refraction

caught in our desires

that come down to this:

to be whole

to be loved,

and the mistakes we make

in the way we cannot

recognize

that we are not what is

left over, incomplete,

searching,

no, we are a reflection,

illumined and pure,

of the vastest space

we can imagine,

and I envision this,

as I my eye catches the spark

of the sun glinting off

gold leaf

on sacred temple grounds:

I don’t have to transport myself

anywhere

for my transmutation.

I am here

with everything that is,

and I will stay here,

until I understand that

love seeps through me

the way the moon

bleeds her light into the sky,

unhindered, abundant,

limitless, moving mountains and seas

with nothing but

inner light.

– TS

Your Protection

I want to see

the you of you

to rest my head

on your head

place my hand

in your hand

to be a place

for your

protection

and an

open field

for your

freedom. – TS

The Best Way to Protect Yourself.

Tammy T. Stone

 

LOVE!

Love does not mean the kind of intimate relationship that often comes with more than a few strings attached … not to mention the feeling of attachment itself!

Love at its deepest, and in its purest form, is the wellspring from which all goodness pours into the world. It is universal. It is unconditional. It is for everyone, and it is based in empathy and compassion, which is to say, the genuine desire to see others rid of their suffering.

By bathing ourselves in this kind of love, we also free ourselves from the entanglements of craving, desire and attachment, which means that this kind of love both purifies the self and heals the world.

Today, let’s reach for all-encompassing love, and please share if you feel moved to!

Tammy x

In Compassion’s Arms: Hearing the Dalai Lama Laugh.

Tammy T. Stone

 

Tales of India

 

There are three lines: one for monks, one for Tibetans and one for foreigners.

We’re at Dharamsala’s Kalachackra Temple on the first morning of the Dalai Lama’s three-day Introduction to Buddhism teaching. Dusty roads and smaller alleyways wind down the hilly mountains at the foothills of the Himalayas, converging past cafes, kiosks and prayer flags, taking thousands of people to the temple.

Men and women must separate at security check; it takes the women 10 times longer to get through, with the exception of the Tibetan nuns. There are far fewer of them than monks, and they fly right in, a flurry of burgundy and comfortable shoes.

There are no cellphones or cameras allowed.

Most people seem to know this in advance, but a few have to leave the line to leave them with security. Up front, there’s a thorough bag check, followed by a body check—and we’re in.

The temple’s sprawling courtyards and prayer halls are spilling over with people from all over the world. We walk among the throngs looking for a seat; there always seems to be that tiny bit of extra room, the intent of generosity and kind spirit translating without effort into miraculous spaces for new bodies.

It’s still early, and we stroll around, walking past a flat screen TV with the Dalai Lama on it, and it takes a moment to realize he’s just a few meters away from us in the hall. Right now. We have the telecast view and the actual view available to us simultaneously.

We look up—there he is, visible through a few open windows, sitting in his large chair mounted on a platform, chatting jovially with a few people nearby.

There’s security everywhere, but everyone inside had been checked, and now it’s deemed safe to allow people to wander around in his immediate vicinity.

This would never happen in the West, if say, Brad Pitt was making a personal appearance somewhere. And that’s Brad Pitt.

This is His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Every day it becomes easier to see how strangely skewed things are.

We eventually settle on a very pleasant courtyard outside and one level down, and fish for our newly-bought little FM radio, two sets of earphones and a splitter. We’re able to locate a faint Japanese translation—and a Korean one—but no English.

Meanwhile, the teaching begins and we can hear the Dalai Lama speaking through loudspeakers in Tibetan, and a Hindi version follows. We fall into the rhythms and cadences of these two languages dancing with intermittent periods of silence.

And laughter.

That delicious, life affirming sound of the Dalai Lama’s booming giggle permeates the entire space of the temple, right through our bodies as though we have all become porous beings, ripe for absorbing this infectious laugh.

It almost seems beside the point that we don’t understand a word of what’s going on. Along with most of the foreigners in our area, we cheerily give up the search for the right frequency after a few minutes, as the Dalai Lama’s chanting begins.

Namo Tasa Bhagavato Arahato Sama Sambuddhasa.

(I pay homage to the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One)

Then:

Buddham Saranam Gacchami

(I go to the Buddha for refuge)

Sangan Saranam Gacchami

(I go to the Sangha for refuge)

Dhammam Saranam Gacchami

(I go to the Dharma for reguge)

Listening to the melodious sounds, I close my eyes and observe a new feeling of gentility and acceptance permeating my thoughts (obliterating them for the time being) into the bodily level, where I’m accustomed to searching for signs of discomfort and distress.

Warmth washes over me.

I feel so lucky for whatever forces have conspired to bring me here in the genuine name of heart-opening. I’m struck by the truth and beauty that has emerged through an act of communal gathering in the presence of this great leader, teacher and healer, and by the seemingly impossible set of circumstances that have brought me here.

I take myself centuries back in time and wrap my imagination round The Buddha, who in my understanding, wasn’t trying to start a religion or become the object of worship. He wanted everyone to recognize the cycles of craving and aversion that perpetuate suffering, and to learn how to free ourselves the way he had: through self-reflection, awareness and hard work.

The path there allows no shortcuts, but the rewards are numerous and exponential if you have the right intention, persistence and diligence.

These are things I have always instinctively believed in, maybe even known, whether I had the language for it or not; they’ve come to me now cased in a new context, outside the intellectual one that is my comfort zone.

Hindus, Tibetans, and foreigners of all backgrounds sit together today, drinking Tibetan butter tea doled out by monks into our borrowed tin cups, quietly enjoying the presence of someone who palpably epitomizes kindness and compassion.

I feel that together we are not unlike a breezy bamboo forest in late spring, soft, pliable and strong.

Compassion, we soon learn, is the subject of today’s teaching, according to our neighbor and friend, who eventually manages to find the English frequency by sitting just outside the temple complex.

We catch it too, for about 30 seconds, during which time I hear His Holiness say that it is very important to study.

Wisdom, I read later in one of his books, comes from analytical thinking and reflection, and complements compassion on the journey of evolution.

For the time being, I’m still stuck on his laughter, and the powerful freedom it evokes in me.

Studying, maybe for the first time in my life, will have to come later.

 

*This was originally published in The Tattooed Buddha – check them out!