Best Middle Way Poems
Good earth styles
Fine ample grass;
A fine raiment
Sun and rain speak
Splurge fond refrain;
Rainbows echo
Dawn flings
Shadows drowned;
Awake to birdsong
Man-made park
Forest architecture;
In the city
Journey here
Begin within;
Greet the sea shore
Waves splashing
Jetty promenade;
Fishing trip moments
Offshore boat ride
Temple pilgrimage;
Kusu Island awaits
By temple hall
Ancestral tablets;
Silence mitigates
Sunday church service
Congregation sings;
Amen to that
Buddhist mantra
Chanting meditation;
Mindfully aware
God's children come
Kingdom awaits;
Barter for bread
Hindu yogi
Beyond samsara;
Lotus posture
Muslim Renaissance
Faith revival;
Touch of grace
Sufi thinker
Austere profoundness;
Lessons to learn
Taoist philosophy
Yin-Yang address;
Harmony presides
Christian theology
Heaven and Hell;
Symbols and signs
Jewish piety
Despite persecution;
People of God
God wears
Many hats;
Each a religion
Wise men tell
From all faiths:
God is Love
Men of Science
Men of God;
Bridge the gap
Go beyond faith
Rest in stillness;
Walk the middle way
God's children
Need love and light;
Stern compassion works
A wise man said:
Live and let live;
Do not shed blood
Keep your faith,
Love all colours;
See human rainbows
Leon Enriquez
05 August 2014
Singapore
Life
is
like
a toilet roll
~when it's half way
it finishes faster
She touched each one but soon they cleared like smoke
little infant rogues, always ready for the heady toke
She prayed to the Gods above but all she got was pain
drenched to the bone by torrents that gave way to rain
So in the end she chose the middle way of no return
Icarus moments in the sun that didn't crash or burn
Resting in God's love she got to see the other side,
feeling vibrant and blissful like the slow ebbing tide.
Who am I today?
Husband, Father, Son or Brother
A noble thought that gives itself away,
Or some distant, self-obsessed Other?
What shape I don tomorrow
Who can say
If I shall move across my stage
Enacting joy or sorrow?
What tides shall bear me
To what familiar or what stranger port
Whose ears shall hear, whose eyes shall see
Old things or new, of unfamiliar sort
Come crowding 'round my senses,
Who may know
What meanings they may bring,
Or how assault
My incomplete defenses?
For I am, at base, like every man
A shambling, shapeless Legion
Who strives for sense as best he can
Within the compass of his crowded reason,
Bounded fore and aft by birth and death,
Seeking for some middle way
Amidst the crowd he is;
To speak some sense with his last breath.
III
Once a pilgrim bound for a distant land
Was standing at the parting of three ways,
He asked a crone which, the right hand,
The left or middle way led before day’s
End to the hospice lying in the vale.
“The middle path,” said she,” yon poplar tree
Marks its entrance.” Along that trail
He walked with haste, while yet was time to see.
Scarce a brook was crossed than darkness fell
And blotted out the red dusk’s ember glow.
He heard aghast a tolling distant bell,
Moved not by hand, but as the wind did blow.
O'er dry sticks his wandering feet did tread
And he did feel dead leaves caress his head.
II
At forty a man is like a pyramid.
His four decades have lent him some solidity.
Both east and west he faces with facility,
Being neither young nor old. Married,
With children, a house and the ability
To be squarely based on terra firma
And convinced his life is – despite that murmur
About taxes, the crime rate, and the mess
Government or unions have us in – not pointless.
He’s proud for seeing things from every side,
By summer's heat, by winter's cold, well-tried.
He builds in blocks of hard square stone,
And moon by moon pays back his mortgage loan,
Freeholding Pharaoh, immobile with lands tied.
I
Babe new-born, aspersed in blood and water,
Eyes dazzled by the first light ever seen.
From one a half, and from a half a quarter,
Division cuts with scalpel fine and keen.
One breath, the hour-glass is upended,
The first pure grains pass through its orifice.
Time, you Saturn! What art e'er mended
Ills sown within the bed of life? A kiss,
A mother’s joy escapes the roll-scribe’s glare.
His eyes peer through his glasses crystal-clear,
Who takes each entry down and makes his figures square.
Who renders tribute in the coin of fear?
Or shall the hand that once has turned the glass
Not turn again when sands have ceased to pass?
The watcher sees the two sides clash,
A certain feel of conscious thought,
Yet sets things free in either dash;
No need to will or order plot.
When all is still, and two sides rest,
Watcher feels truth in simple terms,
Watch conscious fill attend the quest;
Stillness hurls proof to speed the germ.
The watcher knows what outcomes bring,
Allows the surge of variant streams,
Yet sees the show in causal fling;
No need to merge in either dream.
When silence comes to lift the dance,
Watcher knows when to swirl and twirl,
Watch grace now sum beyond mere chance;
Stillness ascends to heal the world.
The watcher sights the path and quest,
A precious now frames the sure road,
Yet both sides fight with primal fest;
No need somehow to judge or load.
When joy and play ignite fond cheer,
Watcher finds way through ecstasy,
Watch middle way inspire most clear;
Stillness funds stay with harmony.
The watcher sees beyond two sides,
A special glow when judgement ends,
Yet soul sets free beyond the tides;
The watcher knows what ego trends.
When faith and hope find love on earth,
Watcher sees tact in wondrous whole,
Watch joy flood scope in grand re-birth;
Stillness primes fact in heart and soul.
Leon Enriquez
27 February 2015
Singapore
Quatrain #16:
MIDDLE WAY
Start with good cheer that frames fond say,
Love need not fear the path of play;
Sense plain truth here that shows you how,
Feel zest that steers the middle way.
~~~~~~~~~
Leon Enriquez
01 July 2015
Singapore
Ash Wednesday reminds vain man
That each must slay false pride's ascend.
This day we note a pious practice
Once learnt by rote in simple gist.
Man is mere dust that is alive
In a brief trust, by grace to thrive.
An ancient lore bears repeating:
From times before, repentance flings.
Man is imaged in God's likeness,
In brief passage till end brightness.
A Christian rite and clear ritual,
Ash cross we write on head visual.
A sign to show we remember
The tact each knows from dust embers.
We come from dust, to dust return;
Life here is trust that love now churns.
This Lent we think upon the way;
The path that links tidings that stay.
Forty days we reflect on deeds,
Look deep to see, atone for weeds.
A change of heart and will and mind;
Let penance start to seek and find.
A change of pace and touch and feel;
To await grace to cleanse and heal.
A change of sight from earthly things;
To see new light, sense Spirit's sling.
We, each must pass from muddy stores
To pristine grass in soul's kind shores.
A certain call springs to each soul:
To bear and bring a new zest whole.
Here as we stand on thresholds clear,
Our Lenten trends groom faithful cheer.
Now each man frames the path to take;
Heed inner flame to rise awake.
Aware of need, each heeds belief,
Feel truth that seeds what soul perceives.
The Christ said: "Choose your new life..."
The road is made beyond man's strife!
The middle way is for all men:
Each soul must stay with inspired span.
Come then with heart attuned to grace,
Let each man start to live love's space.
Love calls to each to gather now;
To touch and reach to glimpse endow.
We, each must learn to love and act;
Love that we yearn answers love's pact.
From dust we come, to dust the end;
Live love's sweet sum in daily trend.
Leon Enriquez
18 Apr 2014
Singapore
(“Dragon’s Eye”, 2024, original encaustic)
Nonduality
Nonduality is at the heart of both physical reality
And all spirituality
The non duality of the two being its essential meaning
But still as simple and obvious as this is
It is easily misunderstood
Perhaps because it is simple and obvious.
The way it is usually approached
Is by pointing out there is no duality
No you and me, us and them
That we are in fact One
And this is the same for all traditions
From a materialist’s Energy
In the form of molecules, atoms and quarks
To a spiritualist’s Source
In the spirit of God, Love, Truth, Emptiness.
As it is said, in The Middle Way,
This form and emptiness is the same
Not as two opposites somehow existing as one
But as synonyms for the same
Seen through the different lenses
Of matter and mind, substance and psyche,
But this remains within the refined realm of intellect.
What is it in our actual lives?
How is it that this oneness,
Which is not even a union
Because there has never been or could be
A separation into parts,
Is experienced within the duality of appearance?
First there is recognition and then confidence;
Recognition that this is the truth of what is,
And confidence that there is no other.
And with this comes familiarity
Familiarity with simply what is
Without trying to change it,
Make it what it isn’t
Through either suppression or transformation.
Poetically the stages of grief come to mind
As Life is clearly the embodiment of this!
What we reject and resist in the end we accept.
And in our lives, this very moment,
This means knowing it will all work out
That it is in fact All Good
And that even at our ugliest and most confused,
We are really never apart
From the wisdom, truth, love and beauty,
That is Life itself.
We know this simply because we are alive
Warts and all.
Nonduality is at the heart of all traditions
Expressed in symbols as diverse
As circles and snakes, labyrinths and crosses
And stars
Radiating out
To manifest as all the stuff of our universe
And the mind that can open its eyes.
(11/9/24)
Born we are flesh, a self being with ego
On a place where what was done once ago
Shall reap its effect always and forever more
The way of investigation, wisdom will implore
Born on an earthly platform, gravity is what we’re held by
Everything changes, even God can’t stop the wheel in the sky
We can’t cling on, not even to a husband or wife
A principle in how one can live his or her life
Let us not sit by the riverbank, on an even flow let's be
Inexpressible, no self but every being is a philosophy
The middle way we must follow—nothing more nothing less
Continue or stay on a course of impermanent happiness
Here, now, enlightened with values, morals, reborn
With a principle of letting go—ego shorn
storm clouds relentlessly
crashed on rock bottom
with the only crack dragging
wreckage and carnage through
a trapdoor into oblivious fog
gruelling sediment confined
a rotten Self of incarceration
the stakes were high
for being impaled
a sizzling cauldron
waiting for a sumptuous feast
manna from hell and a spell
on the barbed wire walls
just behind the firing squad
gift of despair cajoling
hope from the darkest
of abysmal recesses
a balancing act on a
thorny yet slippery cross
one road leading to nowhere
the other painful but promising
no middle way to be had
between death or surrender
fear of the unknown certainly
better than certain demise
Phoenix just be aware of
of the message of Icarus
then the moon will be
waning and waxing
in perpetual motion
dancing into the light
Jesus was not a choice
He was thrust upon me
From my youth
He gave his life
So I could live
And find salvation
And give and give
But take I must
For I’m a fool
Certain to die
And live like a tool
But the Buddha
He lived in between
Denial and joy
Siddhartha Gautama
Lived the middle way
Devadatta tried
To kill his soul
A Judas at best
They both it seems
Had the same goal.
The Euphrates
And the Ganges
Both still flow
And people
Have loved upon
Both banks
So I ask you this question
“How do I save my soul”?
With Jesus or Buddha
Whom do I pay the toll?
To live in heaven
Or back on the earth
As I try to become
An angel of mercy
A Bodhisattva I’m not
Though I’d like to
Get it right,
The first time I try
Hear me dear Lord
And tell me why?
since there is a saying
“noble man walks on the thoroughfare”
Don Quixote abandoned the shortcut-side-road,
steering Rosinante, dashing into the highway
while he was riding on the highway
something suddenly came into his mind
a proverb “the middle way is the golden mean”
he reined the horse into the middle lane looking at the horizon
where the road meets the sky
as he steers the horse it begins loping
the knights overtake Rosinante with their fleet steeds
they swear and finger at Don Quixote with dirty looks
“you scumbags!” Don Quixote yelled to the rude riders
“since the swallows don’t understand the will of wild geese,
why not quickly go back to your hangouts and chant Vedas”*
brandishing lance and at the same time, unknowingly, spurring
the horse
to mitigate his angers he prodded Rosinante to a full gallop
at that moment, a dragon flickering its red and blue eyes
from above came on the cloud and attacked him
as Don Quixote raised his lance
the dragon belched fire from his mouth
and the fire swallowed him
he collapsed on the spot
became a lump of charcoal
*Note: In Chinese character, sound of Sanskrit word “Vedas” (??) spells as bark on first letter, which is the compound letter/word of “mouth and dog.” The phrase “Chant Vedas” metaphorically implying “bark”
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and I? I took the Middle Way.
Mad is the man
Who schemes and scams
Desire now plots
True empty lots
Be shrewd and kind
Find peace of mind
Do not delay
Walk middle way
Ego and pride
Fatal joyride
Poise follows choice
Utter firm voice
All in due time
See the end rhyme
Prepare your grace
To greet each face
Such is the way
Survive and play
Leon Enriquez
29 June 2014
Singapore