Letting delusion drift away,
Allowing attachment to wander off,
Laughing at anger and aversion,
Dispelling them all,
In this natural state of stability,
resting the mind no matter what appears,
allowing this amazing sameness to manifest,
this display of the All-Good,
we discover an equal taste
of all that is, as it is;
We remain in this balance
from our first step on the Spiritual Path, up until,
up until that realization that we
have opened our heart and mind completely,
We have become who we really are,
We are fully enlightened, remaining
in this way from that moment onward,
We open the door to our heart and mind,
allowing that great light to flow, to increase, to manifest,
annihilating darkness
in each step we take, with love, compassion,
great compassion for all in this sameness,
this bright beautiful condition of all and beyond,
beyond all that we had hardly noticed at all,
as we had become entirely too disgusted
with ourselves stuck in this dark dull realm,
this terrible cycle of insanity;
We stabilize our View,
as it is, as we appear
in this thing we call life
and death
and dreams,
this eternally agitated imagination
that is not real, though it seems so;
Through all of our endless wandering,
at last, at last, we aspire to awaken,
to see what is beyond all these obstacles,
to fully embrace what is,
as it is,
to notice, at last, that we are not separate,
not nothing, not permanent,
not anything that our mind can fabricate;
Once Enlightenment Mind is engaged,
the seed is planted, we can begin,
we now have the power to awaken,
our heart and mind may now begin
to open to that great ineffable condition,
the Nature of Mind, our true condition;
Once discovered, once recognized,
once we see for certain who we really are,
we may now, we must now
Awaken.
A poem by Robert Aho © 2025
When we discover this natural condition beyond all constraints, whether we come to this realization in life or the death bardo, or within dreams, we discover that this idea that we are somehow separate from everything else is really a fallacy. Even if we have noticed just a tiny spark within our own heart center, we can intuit this same enlightenment mind, this condition beyond all dualistic constraints. That’s really all we need to be on the Spiritual Path is just some small understanding of our condition in light, as light. We don’t need to have some sort of full or amazing realization to begin, we just need a tiny spark where we aspire to awaken, a spark of knowledge that we are not really limited in any way.
This world does its best to keep us out of balance, telling us lies, keeping us distracted, giving us carrots to chase, not giving us a chance to catch our breath. It’s better to just walk away than to keep engaging in all this turmoil. We need to put our own awakening at the top of our priority list. If we don’t do that, before you know it, we’ve wasted our lives. If we’ve taken this great opportunity to awaken when it comes our way, we’ve inherited the greatest of fortunes.
Equanimity has a lot to do with keeping our lives in balance. We can’t do that if we are always engaged and embroiled with the affairs of the world. Imagine the day you die, being suddenly flung through the karmic winds into the next lifetime. Imagine yourself grasping at your old life, trying to reassemble that, doing your best to take your worldly possessions with you, desperately clinging to everything you knew in the life bardo, as it dissolves completely into emptiness. You can’t take any of it with you, not even self transmigrates into the next lifetime. If your death experience is as upset and out of balance as it can possibly be, your great opportunity in the death bardo will pass by completely unnoticed. Maybe you will see just a flicker of light, if you are lucky.
When preparing for death, we need to constantly look at the balance in not only our lives, but also our dreams. If you generate love and compassion in your daily life, then dream about being a horrible person, you are still out of balance. The Spiritual Path is a complete package, it is about striking a balance in your mind, about generating Bodhicitta with each step you take. If you are truly generating Bodhicitta, truly balanced in this way, your nightmares will all go away. In your daily life, whatever comes your way, you look at that with compassion, with equanimity, knowing that self and other are the same, that dreams and daily life are the same.
Spiritual Practice takes you away from the insanity. We begin to realize that we need not be swayed by others. We have the power to go beyond.
Reality has a way of getting muddied and muddled by life, really by our own misguided aspirations. We don’t need to rely on the word of anyone; actually, we should never do that. We discover who we are by looking within. We discover that we are really beings of light, with unlimited potentiality.
Blessings in Light,
Robert Aho