SONG TO LADY WISDOM
by Julia Liebeskind
by Julia Liebeskind
Lady Wisdom
Mother of Compassion
You have poured an ocean of blessings on this confused traveler.
When I felt shaken
You supported me.
Now I know support as steadfastness of practice.
When I felt engulfed
You touched me.
Now I know relationship as seeing things just as they are.
When I felt cold and alone
You warmed me.
Now I know kindness as both embrace and discrimination.
When I felt blown around
You sheltered me.
Now I know activity as doing what needs to be done.
When I felt lost
You showed me the way.
Now I see signposts everywhere.
When anger arose like a herd of mad elephants
You stood still and let them pass through you.
Now I know anger to be a wave of energy.
When desire arose like a bouquet of deliciously scented flowers
You received it gracefully, and set it gently down.
Now I know to smell desire and then to let it rest.
When everything seemed at peace
You heard the whimpers of the starving dog in the undergrowth,
took her in, and fed her.
Now I know that looking can never stop.
Lady Wisdom
You have led me this far.
Please stay with this restless traveler
Until I wake from my dream.
4 comments:
Thank you for this poem/prayer, Ken. Prayer has always been a difficult mode of practice for me, and mostly I've shyed away from it, not generally feeling at home with formal verbal prayers and certainly not most of them that are asking for impossible interventions into the laws of physics and human physiology/psychology/sociology... But I am slowly learning what prayer means in a Buddhist context and this prayer in particular immediately opened me up to gratitude for the chance to take refuge in practices you so generously teach.
This poem is wonderful. Just this one poem could act as our teacher. I am still wading through Red Pine’s Heart Sutra with very little success but then I seem to have so many distractions. I can only hope that Ken’s version of the Heart Sutra will speak to me.
This is such an inspiring poem. This is something to be printed out and used as a constant reminder on all types of emotions and all aspects of life.
I really like this peom and intend to use it in my University of the Third Age poetry class sometime. I have sent it to other connoisseurs of good thoughts, as an aid to the process of awakening.
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