James Moore Poet Narrative

Simple Truth

In a dream I found myself seated at a table
of a great gathering
at a place where the historical Buddha once stayed.

I stood and began to tell the story of a man who asked for advice
wanting the key to his happiness and freedom.
The Buddha responded by sending him home
to look at his own life, 
to question and return with his own answer.
The man did so, looking but finding no lasting happiness there,
instead only suffering and dissatisfaction.
Returning to the Buddha he was welcomed to join the sangha
where he stayed for many years, maybe his whole life,
eventually finding what is without cause and conditions.

What struck me in the dream where two things;
One, that in the telling I went blank about the significant detail
the man found that made his story unique,
and instead ended up just summarizing the first Noble Truth,
and yet, I'd thought it was this personal detail
that made the story worth telling in the first place,
only to discover it was, in fact, the story of us all,
at least all the listeners gathered at that long dream table.

And two, that in the unsatisfied desire
to find something special to share
I noticed the obvious;
that we were all sitting having a meal
at a place the Buddha had once lived,
almost twenty-five hundred years before,
actually sat and eaten, taught and slept,
permeating the ground to make it holy
with truths still plain and obvious, 
truths without need for any ego to embellish
to somehow make more special
in the telling.

(2/12/20, originally published in my 5th book of poems, Extracting the Essence)

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