Mahakasyapa is famous for answering
Buddha’s silent sermon of an upheld flower
With a simple smile.
And in this flower-smile exchange
The transmission of the recognition
Of suchness was complete.
Such suchness is no different today
A flower and smile are timeless after all
Accessible to us all.
But how do you tell a buddha
From a charlatan?
A buddha is able to answer with silence.
(1/3/26)
Suchness in a flower
Suchness in a dog
Suchness in a baby’s eye
Suchness in a slice of apple pie!
Within, beneath, beyond
The true nature of reality,
The essential ta of all dharma,
What is there excluded?
How can there be anything
More or less than simply what is?
How can the all inclusive
Ever be improved upon?
Ever present
Never changing
Suchness
Simply is
(12/25/25)
("A Moment of Grace aka The Empty Mirror", 2024, original encaustic)
The Clear Light
Looking within
We find what is without
Without doubt
Without compare
Without substance or thought or
Any sense of being something
That is somewhere
Either in or out.
(3/24/24)
Tigers slowly prowl into extinction.
The last rare
undiscovered, unnamed bug
dies
- a million years of conscious gravity
departs for other realms.
Energy shifts, it is more volatile than fire,
more expansive than any sky,
Energy; you and I,
we may wish it,
but it can never die.
Somewhere a tiger and a bug
become a multiple reality,
alternative parallels
that renew what we deemed lost.
Suchness happens.
("The Impermanence of Stuff", 2011, original oil pastels)
The call of the cuckoo
rings out its simple reminder.
Clothed in its plain and ordinary form
it nonetheless with confidence proclaims;
“I am THAT!”
That which is no other than this
bliss of suchness…
In this state of perfect rapture
the cuckoo sings,
what no word can tell,
what no thought can hold,
and yet what everyone knows.
Wake up, wake up.
Rejoice, you have no choice, but to carry on.
(for Mu’ncle - 9/3/23)
That which is done is done,
Let it go – move on.
We let the present moments pass,
then we look for them as if they were some where else.
Be in the moment, and
mindful each and every moment of the day,
we are here right now.
Consciously connected to all there is or will be.
There is no time, no space that exists ...
There is only mind and essence of mind.
Homage to the perfection of beauty and love.
Walking alone in
the dishevelled inner space
I find peace in my failure,
an innocent patch of a silent hurt.
The futility of hollow beliefs
crawls like a spent thunder.
Truth remains unborn.
I cross a bridge where eterniry begins.
The freaks chase the shadow for a while,
the idea so excruciating
they melt in conspiracy of silence.
In oneness and suchness
the harmony drips
from infinite pores.
The seed has a history.
Lost in resonance of outer space,
now wakes the blood,
distorting the ripples.
SATISH VERMA
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.