Poems
Venerable Mahā Kassapa, the Buddha's strictest disciple, is also known for his composition of one of the finest early examples of nature poetry. Poetry is very popular in Thailand and practitioners in the Thai Wilderness Tradition will occasionally be inspired to poetry. Although they are very difficult to translate satisfactorily, some examples will be presented here, including my own.
The most well-known (if not well-understood!) poem is the one written in the 1920's by Luang Pu Mun Bhūridatto himself. A number of monks have tried to translate it, but this version is the only one that tries to preserve its poetic sensibility:
Khandhavimutti Sāmaṅgīdhamma – 'The Dhamma-Ballad of Liberation from the Khandhas'.
Luang Pu Mun Bhūridatto could teach any aspect of Dhamma, but he didn't just spoon-feed his disciples information. When he wanted them to develop their own discernment, he would sometimes teach in dense, cryptic Lao poetry-puzzles. Here is one:
'Bananas, Four Bunches'
Four clusters of bananas –
The little novice watches over the bunches,
The established monk sits down and lunches,
"Iti-pi so bhagavā!"
– What does this mean?
Luang Pu Mun Bhūridatto
'Courage'
Where no Māra stood,
pāramī won't arise;
If Māra never terrorised,
pāramī could not climb high.
For a monk to be good,
pāramī must have strength;
For a monk to have length,
Māra's strength – never dread!
If a monk is not good,
his pāramī cracked and faint,
his virtue lacks length:
Māra's strength eats his head.
Kruba SiVichai
This was a saying of Kruba SiVichai's that he would quote often. He shared it with Luang Pu Mun Bhūridatto, who shared it in turn with Luang Pu Sao Kantasīlo, who took it up as one of his favourite sayings. 'Māra' is every kind of obstruction personified, and 'pāramī' are the spiritual perfections needed to realise awakening.
This Place
in the late monsoon
of southern Isaan,
the rain is so heavy
even air cannot move.
it crowds together
in available places,
insistent and thick
against the sinuses.
monk’s robes hang heavy,
sticky, and damp,
and the scent of old wine
somehow clings to the fibres.
and the forest is lush
around this empty hut
where the tiled floor is slick
and all the papers are soft.
a monk’s heart grows quiet
in late afternoon
– wisdom is found in oppression –
cool evening slips in unimpeded.
first, wisdom likes accumulation,
building up knowledge
and drawing relations
– the infrastructure of its path.
but soon it becomes
like the air in Isaan,
too heavy to move,
holding one down.
this wisdom is good
but stuck on its goodness,
until it’s so heavy
the heart cannot move.
when it can’t go forward
and it can’t return,
oppression is found
in this wisdom.
it crowds together
in available places,
insistent and thick
against its own wishes.
this oppression is lush
but a monk’s heart grows quiet
– wisdom is found in oppression –
dispassion slips in unimpeded.
now, wisdom is different
– like still, flowing water –
established, but swirling
and letting things go.
“this is the nature of body;
this is the nature of mind”
wisdom is tired of oppression
– a monk’s heart slips out unimpeded.
the rain is so heavy
even air cannot move,
in the late monsoon
of southern Isaan.
and a monk’s robes hang heavy
sticky and damp,
but far from the mind’s
unassailable places.
this wisdom is good,
born of dispassion,
when happiness comes
to the place where there’s nothing.
Hāsapañño Bhikkhu
Wat Nong Pah Pong
Pansah 2549
This Spinning
(down)
cicadas serenade us in the failing light
as the shadows in the forest join hands,
while the leaves and the trees melt into night
as the colour and the form disbands.
i like the evening - to me it's strangely pleasing
when the mind is evening out:
with the world in retreat, the harshness and heat
can only be fizzling out...
to those of you who fear the dark,
what terror would you feel
if the soughing of the wind were all
for evidence your world is real?
if loneliness and death you fear,
you'll also flee from peace:
to realise Nibbāna
you must know the heart of death.
* * *
(up)
starlings are the darlings of the choir at dawn
who dramatise the coming of a day;
and the leaves and the trees, now finely drawn
as the veils of the darkness give way.
i also like the morning - to me it seems a warning
with a gentle, mourning plea:
“though the heat will advance, the sun's fiery dance
is a light to help you see”...
to those who fear the naked flame,
what terror would persist
if the mind engulfed in fire were all
for evidence that you exist?
if suffering you can't endure,
you'll blind yourself to truth:
to understand the Noble Truths
you must meet the eyes of pain.
Hāsapañño Bhikkhu
Wat PraThat Foon
October 2552
Poem
A poem is a mailman
Pushing the envelope
To the outermost range
Of where words can go.
The limit of the range
Of words,
Of thoughts,
Of concepts,
Is not the end:
There is a beyond,
A reality
Of such pure poetry,
Where mere poems
Can find no footing.
There is no end,
And no beginning
To this poetry:
No words to deceive.
Only this.
Hāsapañño Bhikkhu
Wat Pah Tert Prakiat Sirindhorn
March 2553
Black Magic
The mood that
takes the phone call
destroyed my mother.
The mood that
centred the world on me
throws everything at variance.
The mood that
sees a man’s shortcoming
turned him into a dog.
The mood that
laughed with glee
eats your liver with fava beans.
The mood that
feels disrecognised
set fire to all the heavens.
The mood that
offered consolation
locks me in a lonely cell.
The mood that
answers to my name
never justifies himself:
the essential
inherent interior essence
of awareness only knows
- it knows no evil,
knows no good,
knows no deception or truth.
It simply knows,
and yields up its strange
power to whatever it knows.
Without mindfulness
and wisdom, faith and effort yoked
to the teaching of an awakened one
awareness
is left unprotected
from perception, feeling, and thought,
interpreting sense
contact in harmful, habitual ways, and
black magic rules the world.
Hāsapañño Bhikkhu
Wat Doi Mae Pang
September 2553
World(s) at peace
A heart unstirred,
is a heart at ease.
If every heart now is at ease,
the whole world will be at peace.
No need to seek it somewhere else,
just bring your heart to reach this peace.
Every heart that reached this peace,
has this world and all other worlds
brought to peace
in their entirety.
Gathā of LP Baen Dhanākaro
18th February 2547
Translated from the Thai by Thiracitto Bhikkhu
