Bread
http://www.jaisiyaram.com/websitepublisher/articles/77/1/Bread/Page1.html
Thomas Cox
T. Luis Cox has been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for the last fifteen years, in which his principal teachers have been H.E. Garchen Rinpoche, Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche, the Ven. Ontul Rinpoche, the Ven. Choejor Rinpoche, and Khenchen Parchhimba Dorjee Rinpoche. During that time, he’s led study groups in Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation and Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, as well as having taught meditation and led various meditation groups.
Born in Toquepala, Peru, he lived in California, Indiana, and Ohio before moving to Tucson, Arizona in 1987 to attend the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Arizona. After graduating in 1991, he went into the business of making food for a living, what involved a wholesale natural foods business and a restaurant called The Tao of Natural Foods Cafe. Recently, he’s worked as a writing instructor at Pima College. Currently, he directs the Tibetan Meditation Center of Tucson and does healing work with a new technology involving Vogel crystals, light and sound. His first book of poems A Stone Blessing has recently been published by Uccelli Press (http://uccellipress.com) of Seattle, Washington. He’s also author of Among Angels and Crabs, as yet unpublished, as well as a recently completed collection of poems entitled Breathing with Wings in October Light. He continues to work on The Lotus King, a book-length narrative poem on the life of Guru Padmasambhava, and is also working on a new collection of poems based on the paintings of artist Sarah Spector called Imaginary Still Lifes.
Above all, his daughter Mandarava (named after Padmasambhava’s first consort) continues to be the light and inspiration of his life.
By Thomas Cox
Published on 26 August 2009
I wrote this poem after hearing a talk Swami Balendu gave in Tucson on the difference between the true guru as the essence of love and compassion versus the false guru who is all about power and pride. In particular, I was greatly moved when he said it isn't gold and silver we need to have manifested (a mere parlor trick in the canon of siddhis), it's simple bread for all those hungry and starving in India and elsewhere.
Bread
for Amanda
there he is, swami ji. god is love, he says.
this love is teaching me how to eat bread
again, to feel each grain against
my tongue, each a literal sun
dissolving down my throat.
who can explain the comings and goings
of the heart. we're born into these human bodies
and we hunger after salt,
after beer with pancakes,
a little Bach with our vodka,
some shiva shambho with our late-night sardines caught fresh off the coast of Ecuador, how
i wish each one of them to eat such bread, and i think how
she has said she is Shams to my Rumi and i liken this then to the little bit of salt
one throws into sourdough to bring
out its sharp tang, and
i row out to the shore of such longing and i find
more bread, wishing to give it to all the children
living in ruined stoves on beds of crematorium ash in the deepest alleys
of india, wishing to take it out of my mouth and put it
into theirs, for there are no tears to compensate
for this, because this is the bread
of our most profound joy, which has no leavening,
because this has no degreees of falling and rising,
this is the dance that follows
us, the love that breathes in the shadow of our walking
forward, that bread that breaks
on the plate before us from some field
in iowa or wisconsin, breaking to say
there is nothing to say about such love,
because we can talk and talk and talk
(and oh how so many do),
because i love this man, this simple yogi swami ji,
for he is not god, he is simply love.
there he is, swami ji. god is love, he says.
this love is teaching me how to eat bread
again, to feel each grain against
my tongue, each a literal sun
dissolving down my throat.
who can explain the comings and goings
of the heart. we're born into these human bodies
and we hunger after salt,
after beer with pancakes,
a little Bach with our vodka,
some shiva shambho with our late-night sardines caught fresh off the coast of Ecuador, how
i wish each one of them to eat such bread, and i think how
she has said she is Shams to my Rumi and i liken this then to the little bit of salt
one throws into sourdough to bring
out its sharp tang, and
i row out to the shore of such longing and i find
more bread, wishing to give it to all the children
living in ruined stoves on beds of crematorium ash in the deepest alleys
of india, wishing to take it out of my mouth and put it
into theirs, for there are no tears to compensate
for this, because this is the bread
of our most profound joy, which has no leavening,
because this has no degreees of falling and rising,
this is the dance that follows
us, the love that breathes in the shadow of our walking
forward, that bread that breaks
on the plate before us from some field
in iowa or wisconsin, breaking to say
there is nothing to say about such love,
because we can talk and talk and talk
(and oh how so many do),
because i love this man, this simple yogi swami ji,
for he is not god, he is simply love.