Twelve Links

Out of the dark

we come circling,

blind and reaching

the monkey mind, waking.

There in the dark, a light,

slick wet

and the potter’s wheel spinning,

black river flowing,  and we reach,

and find we have hands

look, and find we have eyes,

stand within a house with six windows

and see a world out there,

birdsong and zephyr

lovers embracing,

and we cannot stay quiet,

with spring in the air.

We run to meet it.

We hope we love we wrap

ourselves in sunlight and

too late learn shadows

for we are caught now, devoted to tomorrow and tomorrow and…

we can have it, 

so near, just there, beyond, soon,

try again, drink life dry,  hurl the bottle, tear away the fruit,

fight for it!

There is no stopping now.

Now we must come again.

A womb will carry us back

to be born in blood and yearning,

and then we are here,

existence required,

aging with each breath,

death stamped on our passports,

and dread dark at every exit.

**The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination and their associated imagery on thangkas depicting the Buddhist Wheel of Life.

1.     Ignorance – a blind person

2.     Volitional formation (impulse  due to past karma) – a potter making pots

3.     Consciousness – monkey leaping

4.     Name and form – body and mind come together in individual existence – people in a boat

5.     Faculties and objects  - the sense organs and their objects – a house with six  windows

6.     Contact – an embracing couple

7.     Sensations, pleasurable and painful leading to desire and aversion – an arrow piercing an eye

8.     Craving or desire – a man drinking beer, surrounded by bottles

9.     Clinging or grasping to self and to pleasures    and to a womb leading to rebirth – monkey or person reaching for a fruit

10. Becoming – forming the next life – a pregnant woman or a couple making love

11. Birth – a woman in childbirth

12. Old age and death  

Dedicated to those who died yesterday in Norway, and all those who now 

live with the pain of it.