An Ode to Mindfulness

(A transcription of musings of a mind, Hong Kong, 4th November, 2007)

Although family and friends surround me, I have but only one companion, who eats with me, sleeps with me, stays with me, walks with me, attends to me and is with me all the time. Only one true companion.

I spend time with my friends, I think of them, I talk with them, I enjoy with them, but hardly a moment have I been with the true companion. The only one true companion.

In the light of day my eyes are as good as there is light to see, but who guides me throughout the darkness of this light of day and night, is none, but my true companion.

Who walks with me, every moment day and night, in light and in darkness, is but the walking stick of this blind man, it is the only means of finding a way. Blind as we are by the light of these eyes, it is but only these eyes that desire to possess all things it sees in the blind.

Within us and without us this desire to possess this body is so great, and that is that which keeps us within us. For we do not live for ourselves but others, to show off shy of shame and humiliation, which is but foolish pride.

We live with countless allusions that continue to follow us, to appear before us, to torment us, time and again, repetitively, in perpetuity. What, oh what, makes us hold so allure all things in the blind in the never ending play in the theatre within us.

It is nothing but our desire to possess this self, both in the darkness of day and of night, that makes it all so possible and so impossible. And we have but only one companion who could guide us through this darkness, when we are a sleep and awake, when we are happy and sad, when we are calm and angry.

It is this companion, the only one in my life through which I can see the light, the true light, and that is you the light of mindfulness. It is with mindfulness, this true light that we could only find the way in the darkness of light, the darkness of our follies, the darkness that is the cause of our suffering, the darkness of untold misery.

It is only this light, the light of mindfulness that can show us, that can reveal to us the true reality and the true nature of all things.  And it is this light of mindfulness that can make us see through the dark, to reveal the impermanent hand of all things once so grand, the cause of our suffering, deceiving us from time immemorial, blinding us so foolishly, and for eternity.