Your Meditation is Nothing

If you can’t stand beside a friendless man your meditation is nothing.

If you can’t listen to pain and terror then your meditation is nothing.

If you can’t befriend the insane and share from their bowl your meditation is nothing.

If you cannot take the gun gently from the hand of the murderer and embrace him in his horror then your meditation is nothing.

If you cannot see the beauty and life in the one without limbs then your meditation is nothing.

If you cannot sit beside the aged in their loneliness then your meditation is nothing.

If you can’t embrace your own pain and shout “Yes!” to Life then your meditation is nothing.

 If you can surrender all that you are, all that you have,

if you can embrace life without wanting it or wanting to change it,

if you can hear the sounds of pain and joy and know they come from the same source,

if you can sit in the fire, rain, snow, sun and in surrender open your heart

to the purity of love then your meditation is the supreme gift of the Mani Pearl, the light of the Pure Land. 

If you can meditate the Nothing knowing your meditation is nothing then

all serenity and bliss radiate like perfume from the Lotus.

Nothing and all are one in Joy.

Zhi Sheng (Malcolm Hunt), Guang Jue Temple, Tian Mu Mountain 2011