“My dear Phuntsok, you have entered the womb

Of absolute stillness, and is no birth

There; nor exists death. To this lost country

You’ve come forsaking fond children and friends,

And yearned to know the non-self. It upholds

Us all, these blue ranges, these crystal brooks,

These lands stretching beyond sight, and the birds

Winging past imagination’s skies. You

Walked long miles to comprehend mystery

Of the great featureless. But you can hear

In silence of your thought the triumphant

Voices coming from far. Could it not be

That in the pregnant zero lives someone,

Lending another sense to all that is?

Could it not be that to the realms of work

Are returning a thousand masters, they

Of wide peace giving to our little world

Unsorrowing trueness? Should not these streets

Become the pathways of life affirming

New freedom? You should win it to make vans

That crack not on the broken roads of time;

The dreamlessness of sleep into sudden

Beginning must blaze, as if some strange blank

Of the welcome night collected itself

And turned into stars. In the aloofness

Of everlasting calm there ought to be

A reality reckoning us all,

Worthwhileness of pain too, suffering, death,

This daily passing world. Naught here around

Was planned unwisely, and there’s no mountain

That speaks not to the valley.” But Phuntsok

Struck a note, even as he mused non-god

Becoming these many gods. “O Tenzin,

This is the birthplace of conscious nihil

Out of which shall ensue first a power

In whose passion shall grow the urge to be.”

RY Deshpande

22 September 2004