Lonely Prayer

2, 외로운 기도

Lonely Prayer

Dharmakāya Buddha.

This is how we met, you and I.

I know that you are here in the leaves as they change colors, in their ripe smell as they fall, in the cool wind brushing across my cheek, in the bustle of the marketplace, and in the steam rising from a warm bowl of noodles.

I still feel cautious with each word and verse that I offer you, my foolish mind scattered despite my intentions.

I offer thanks that I may pray in human form as a follower of Buddha, and I hope that this prayer will reach you with the passage of time.

On countless days and nights, I have become exhausted battling the irrepressible desires within me.

I have feared that I might become a stumbling block along your path and that I have allowed my earthly desires to command and deplete me.

The reason that I felt so sad every time I slumped listlessly down was partly because of my shame at how my endless foolishness had shown itself.

But it may also have been the sense of inferiority that accompanied the thought that my vow to the right dharma, which I had believed in so firmly, and my power of mind to honor it were not as strong as they should have been.

I do not know how many times I have anguished over whether this path is my lot.

I summon courage from those words: that realization originates in belief and is achieved through faith. Dharmakāya Buddha, opposing the darkness within me, following the fear like a shadow. I will hear your wisdom and clear away my foolishness with its light.

Dharmakāya Buddha, may we bloom with grace to one another in our lives.

It seems to me that I forget too many things.

I have thought too much of the big picture, blithely ignoring the preciousness of the everyday, casting to the winds the human feeling with which we cannot live—only to hang my head in belated sorrow.

When the encounters between people are reborn as dependent arising, even as those minds may sometimes become selfish and scar one another.

May that pain be cleansed so that they return as positive affinities, Dharmakāya Buddha.

This I pray every time that I see you.

How many times in our lives will we meet and part with people?

How often will we smile and shed tears?

We speak of dependent arising, and in our hearts we profoundly sense the beauty of its truth.

I wish to fill myself with all that love, to match my own mind right now, as I stand alone before you.

It will be a joy to discover how you are always there as part of my daily life.

Dharmakāya Buddha. As a companion in life, a comrade, an alter ego, a friend in faith, and a fellow practitioner in cultivation, take my hand until my foolishness becomes wisdom.

This is my confession: the reason that I can never let go of you is because I am the “you” within you, and you are another “me” within me.

For you are the master who delivers those who are impoverished of mind with your loving-kindness.

Palms together.