Long Dharma Poems
Long Dharma Poems. Below are the most popular long Dharma by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Dharma poems by poem length and keyword.
Today, finally, with:
Necessity,
Fate,
Destiny,
Karma and
Dharma,
Face to face I came
Who
All to me with great emphasis declared that
Their obedient child I ought to be
And
There was nothing, in my life I should ever,
Think, say or do, if first,
Their consent to me was not given!
Attentively and with great respect, their arguments, I heard
Making certain not to make any sound
But when, the courage in my heart, suddenly, I found
My voice I raised and daringly announced:
“Since your child I am then some of your powers in me you
Have invested
So as to do the things that you wish me, reality to make
Thus
Some sort of freedom I must possess, otherwise, I do not see
The reason into this life for which I was brought,
So
It seems to me that with you, I am a co-creator and as such
Have rights and responsibilities which you to me cannot deny
And the most sacred right of all is that of my FREEDOM which now,
With respect, I have from you to claim
For
My vocation to complete, as Providence expects from
Me to realize!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
11 November 2015
By Phan Tan Hai
The teacher taught: look into mind, no words appear—
in the wordless dawn, sunlight speaks.
Ancients and future ones smile like a dream;
who strikes the bell and steals a character today?
The teacher taught: rings, bracelets, ornaments—
all are one sky of non-duality, pure gold in nature.
To stir the mind of distinction is to drift away
into the vast waves of three realms, six paths.
The teacher taught: a hundred thousand cakes
are but one invisible dough.
Liking and disliking open countless worlds;
seeing the unborn mind is the unborn.
The teacher taught: this world is a play—
today this role, tomorrow another.
Suffering, like the great ocean of waves,
is still one nature of water, never apart.
The teacher taught: impermanence in all worlds—
to see it as real is delusion.
Do not say “is” or “is not”;
in wordless stillness, one does not err.
The teacher taught: emptiness is form—
like a hand turned over, palm to back.
To see nature is to see no self-nature;
hearing the bell, one sees the Dharma.
("Spinning Earth", 2016)
The Impermanent
What is impermanent, by definition,
Doesn’t last and can’t remain,
And what is not impermanent?
Yet each of us has a lingering thought
That something must be.
So we habitually project this intuition,
This inner knowing of the most holy,
Onto the everyday and profane.
We think maybe we are somehow permanent
Or maybe what we create, what we accomplish and achieve
Will somehow become so.
But obviously these are vain hopes
We all know deep down are not it.
Still we know that something must be
Beyond the bounds of change,
Something that is, now and always,
A constant source of solace and guidance
An IT that is somewhere within us and without us.
We know, but cannot say, what is true
Not because we don’t want to, or lack the words,
But because what we intuit
As the changeless has no name, no concept
Beyond mere labels which by definition miss the mark.
This is the original sin we all share, after all,
The lack of ability and facility
To grasp the ungraspable
And so we settle instead to grasp in vain
The impermanent.
(1/8/23)
Long ago I was born Catholic in a home smelling of Holy wax and Montreal
family life was a communal fractal of worship as I drew closer to Mary's call
Obedient to extreme I never questioned my Faith nor my doctrinal lineage
I heard voices only Mystics deciphered, in this inner sanctum a lived as a sage
Then at the age of twenty I left my hierarchical home to live abroad who knew,
that a new day was dawning, I soon flew by the power of my wings, on cue
one day I entered a Buddhist Temple for the first time confused and alone,
I revisited this place after a long journey, and spiritually re-found my home
I owed it to myself to find my own truth even if it meant shifting space
so onwards I went into Sacred Silence as a devotee of United Grace
*******
One lifetime I am on a Ferris Wheel laughing and eating cotton candy with my Father,
and the next I am on a Dharma Wheel moving my penumbra light like an obedient daughter.
Long ago I was a great Catholic girl in a home with family too loud and violent to feel safe,
today I don't tag myself in any Faith, leaning towards Sacred Light I am who I am, vouchsafe.
By Phan Tan Hai
One more day—hair and beard turning silver,
murmuring each word of the wind of impermanence;
the old book strains my weary joints,
hearing ancient ages chill my bones.
Learning without end—the mind like sunlight,
shining across all realms, the afternoon deeply gold;
the night of Nirvana joyful and silent,
the day of Bodhisattvas filled with compassion.
One more day—walking in great fatigue,
each step of mind, each step of meditation;
sitting by the river, watching clouds rise,
seeing no self, seeing no boat.
Learning without end—the practice like stone,
without craving, without anger;
building countless bridges of illusion
to carry all beings across the river.
One more day—ears and eyes growing weak,
yet the undying mind bright as a mirror;
understanding at last the Teacher’s old words:
no single dharma—just the ordinary mind.
Learning without end—the practice like a mountain,
the mind unmoving through storms of the sea;
from the highest peak springs a stream
carrying compassion to bathe all beings.
One more day—this body nearing death,
ten thousand lives wandering through ten thousand homes;
yet in this very mind, the wordless Sutra—
Nirvana never far away.
Learning without end—the practice like the wind,
coming from nowhere, going nowhere;
hearing birth and death in every breath,
without delight, without sorrow.
One more day—watching the winds of karma,
patient, patient, patient—bathing in impermanence;
a friend stops by asking of countless lives,
I offer only a smile, and fall into silence.
Learning without end—the mind of all Buddhas,
moon rising over the mountain, the practice of letting go;
realizing no-self, the Dharma as it is—
no single mind, and that is the wonder.
(“The Longest Journey”, 2020, original encaustic)
Each of us a composite
Layered layers
Around a core
Elusive, beyond name
Pure, yet deceptively plain.
Around this core of Holy Spirit Buddha Nature
The mortal coil of flesh and psychic ethers
Veils our nature in all its aches and pains,
Fears, anxieties and confusions
Simply Being Human.
Pure and tainted bound together
A marriage of opposites
Cursed and blessed by turn
But joined none the less
In an inexplicable union of empty-appearance.
Just as we clothe our naked bodies
Our empty nature lies hidden from view.
We see and appreciate
The layers that buffer and protect,
But ultimately miss what lies beneath.
(3/18/26)
Nonsectarian
(for Charlie)
A friend asked me recently if I’m still a Buddhist
And I replied no
Without telling him I’m beyond labels.
To me Buddhism and Christianity are no different
In being just different expressions of dharma,
Dharma being Sanskrit for truth.
Today I heard a Buddhist prayer
Of wishing to become the kind of being
Who makes everyone happy to just see.
And I laughed out loud
And thought, “Hell yeah!”
I want to be that kind of person.
And not to just make them happy,
But to laugh, and play, relax and
Loosen the chains
That bind their heart.
I know I’m not that person today,
But I thought of someone who was,
And how all over the world
Those chains are now loosening
And people are feeling strong and free
Even as they cry in grief.
(9/13/25)
By Phan Tan Hai
At eighty, looking at this body of five aggregates,
awakening to the truth that form is emptiness;
shimmering like illusion, like reality—
knowing Mother waits on the other shore.
At midnight whispering to the wind,
hearing faintly the echo of sutra verses;
lotus fragrance steeped into ink and paper,
writing slowly from the heart.
Do Nghe once held the pen,
his poetry crossing rivers on ferries,
flowing through a thousand miles of mountains and streams—
only then realizing the ocean is also oneself.
What is it all for—who can know?
A newborn child sends out a laugh;
today we return, gathering things together,
and many more years drift like clouds across the sky.
Eighty—old friend, greetings to you;
you whisper to the autumn wind:
thus, thus, thus it is—
joy handed over like a precious sword.
Once you practiced the craft of delivering babies,
writing letters to newborns;
now looking back, far from the operating room,
standing in the marketplace, grateful for your life.
Was it one day you met again
someone with white hair, eyes brimming—
sitting to feel each breath,
bathing impermanence through flesh and bone.
Joy beyond measure, studying the Buddha,
seeing the moon rise, awakening to Lankatara,
realizing the whole sky is without self,
realizing the Buddha-realm is never far.
Eighty apricot branches in the front yard,
hearing life joyful as the winter wind;
flowers drifting like Dharma rain,
lifting your face, your heart light as emptiness.
Pouring out heart and lungs and liver,
transforming into drifting mist across the sky;
bidding farewell to ten thousand past lives,
birds flying, windswept across the heavens.
Buddha Buddha Buddha—non-dual across the sky;
Zen Zen Zen—sutras chanted without words;
Mind Mind Mind—no self, no dharma;
Do Hong Ngoc—smiling on into eighty.
---- August 2020. Sitting amidst the golden sunlight of a foreign land, I send this from California to celebrate the 80th birthday of the poet Do Hong Ngoc.
Am I a body? Am I a mind? Or bundle of both?
Does blood, as though ordered, only through single channel flow?
Is heart seat of mind? Does mind to dwell-in heart take an oath?
Do veins, like children in uniform, pass through the same row?
Is mind a lone monk? Nay! Body and mind are never split.
When each cell of mind-body is bound in single union,
Mind and heart, and flesh, and blood, and veins, and bones are well-knit.
Param Brahma (the God Almighty) finds his communion...!
When physic and psyche are sound, there are divine vibrations,
This frees karma-dharma bondage of earthly existence,
Leading each atman (human) to heavenly relations;
Liberates from disillusions and inner resistance...!
Keeping one’s body and mind pure - isn't, hence, truly must?
Who does wish one's whole life, forever decaying in dust…?
07 September 2022
Sans mind-body who are we Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
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)