it's My Tail!

Black Smoke

I have thrown my "me" away:

The river willows bud pale blue.

Where did I toss that "me?"

I sought it in wind and water.

Resigned, I looked up:

A cat at the controls of a helicopter!

Landing and sidling up to me,

Where I lay flat on my back, she asked:

"Have you emerged from the earth----you?"

"Who----Me?"

"Well then, what's that grass sprouting

All over your behind?"

Out shot my hand and grabbed

The cat's tail, which I was still holding

When the helicopter went up again.

At last I had found my "me,"

I thought but not for long.

Night fell silently, but high above

Two glittering eyeballs wouldn't disappear.

They were burning on me,

As if the "me" I'd abandoned,

Overpowered by loneliness,

Was frantically craving me.

Shinkichi Takahashi was a 20^th century Zen Buddhist poet. His work can be read at many different levels of thought based on one's own beliefs about the nature of physical life. One important aspect of his work is that it reflects the nature of his reality or group of realities in a very special way. His ideas are spontaneous thoughts that cross the boundaries set by an establishment that sees only black and white with a touch of gray.

 His words are like black smoke that dissipates in the air but the smell lingers on. I consider his work to be not only Zen beliefs but the essence of 21^st century enlightenment. He left a rich collection of thoughts for the physical world to ponder and absorb into the mainstream concept that thought creates the world I experience.

You know Takahashi has a point I do throw away a "me" somewhere in my mind, where it lands, continues to baffle the me, I call my self. I seem to be more than just that human who claims himself to be whole in the only reality I call real, because deep down inside of me I feel another me, or perhaps a group of me's that surface from time to time just to let me know they are present and vocal in another fashion.

Takahashi poem explains how he had interaction with another aspect of his consciousness and how once he remembered it and became aware of it he was never the same. He calls it a craving, a desire to be connected to the consciousness that exists simultaneously with the focus consciousness. It's a cat in a helicopter of my mind, whose eyes never leave mine once I grab it by the tail of remembering.

The veil of separation is pulling back and exposing another group of thoughts within me. Old beliefs are being overpowered and my loneliness is being replaced by a sense of unity. I feel the craving to be whole again, and live in the splendor of a multidimensional entity. I am reintroducing my self to more me's that make up the spirit that is my foundation.

At last I found another me, and then another group of me's surround me and ask that same question: "What's that grass all over your behind?" I answer: "It's my tail that's filled with the eyes of my creator."