The Radio and the Sky

A traveller wandered, keen to know
Why joy would come, then also go.
Why hopes would bloom then fade from sight,
Why days seemed clear, then lost their light.

Searching through books and searching through men,
And circled round the same path again.
Each answer promised, “You’ll be free,
If you become who you’re meant to be.”

So teachers taught him goals and plans,
Success mapped neatly by human hands.
They showed him habits, thoughts and aims,
And how to master life’s great games.

“Your mind,” they said, “is like a radio,
Broadcasting all the seeds you sow.
Tune the dial and change the song,
And life will start to sing along.”

So he polished knobs of thought each day,
Adjusted fears that stood in the way.
He tuned to confidence, wealth and cheer,
And many things he wished drew near.

Yet late one night beneath the stars,
He noticed still his hidden scars.
Though stations changed upon the dial,
The restless listener stayed all the while.

For something deeper stirred inside,
A quiet question he could not hide.
Who hears the music? Who feels the pain?
Who rides the loss and rides the gain?

Then fate led him to an ancient sage
Who carried neither script nor stage.
The sage smiled kindly and whispered low,
“There’s something yet you do not know.

You’ve spent your years improving dreams,
Polishing up the passing scenes.
Yet all the while you’ve failed to see
The one who claims, ‘This dream is a “me.'”
The traveller frowned.

“What do you mean?
I’ve worked so hard. My life’s serene.”
The sage picked up a muddy glass
And watched the drifting particles pass.

“Most people shake this glass each day,
Thought after thought in endless play.
Seeking answers, chasing more,
Opening Pandora’s box galore.

The patterns buried in the mind,
Installed before awareness shined,
Keep turning wheels beneath the floor,
Repeating yesterday once more.”

The traveller watched the swirling mud
Move through the water like a flood.
“So what should I do?” he asked the sage.
“Become a monk? Retreat from age?”

The sage just laughed. “No need to run.
There’s nowhere to go and nothing to become.
Simply set the glass down for a while.
Sit with yourself. Be still. Reconcile.”

So day by day he learned to rest,
Not chasing east, not chasing west.
The muddy waters slowly cleared,
And things he’d never seen appeared.

A thought would rise and then depart.
A feeling trembled through the heart.
Desire would come, then fade away.
Like passing clouds on summer’s day.

He saw attachment pull and cling.
He saw aversion’s burning sting.
He saw pride build a towering wall,
And jealousy compare it all.

Most of all, he came to know
The root from which these poisons grow:
A simple blindness of the mind,
Mistaking what it could not find.

For all along he’d held as true
A solid “me” that never grew.
A fixed observer at the core, no cure.
For none was ever found for sure.

With calm abiding as his guide,
He learned to look beneath the tide.
And through insight’s clear and gentle art,
He turned the lantern on the heart.

What once seemed solid, fixed and real
Began to soften and reveal
A world arising, bright and free,
Through causes, conditions, endlessly.

Not nothingness and not a thing,
Not something one could hold or bring.
Beyond the grasp of yes and no,
The Middle Way began to show.

The sage then said, “The radio’s fine.
Its songs have purpose within their time.
But Dharma points beyond the tune,
Beyond the stars, beyond the moon.

Personal growth may change the station,
Dharma transforms identification.
One rearranges the dreamer’s sight,
The other helps him wake outright.”

Years later, when the sage had gone,
The traveller continued travelling on.
Yet now his journey was not to find
Another treasure for the mind.

His practice became awareness knowing
The source from which all things were flowing.
The two truths danced like moon and sea,
Distinct yet sharing unity.

Appearances arose and played,
Yet nothing permanent was made.
The listener, music, radio song,
Had never been two all along.

And in the silence, vast and clear,
There remained nothing left to fear.
For suffering’s roots had lost their claim
When wisdom saw through grasping’s game.

The sky had not been made anew.
The clouds had simply parted in the View.
And what remained, beyond all strife,
Was awareness, awake to itself as life.