Be the poem

One day I was quoting David Carradine on my Facebook – “If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.” Some people were puzzled and asked, “What does it mean?”

Likewise, in my ever first Video Blog, I said something like, “You are not a person with wisdom. You are the wisdom.” It seems to be puzzling for some people, and some tried to correct my grammar.

We are so identified as this body, which grows, changes and ages, and this mind, which thinks, changes, and ‘hopefully’ improves. That’s how it comes the way of life which says we need to learn, to practice, to try hard, to fail and succeed, so that we can be a poet with all the glory, admiration and successful status at the end of this hardship-filled path that’s what we call “my life”.

It’s false identification.

That which changes cannot be who you are. Four seasons cycle through a city. The city is not identified as a season.

As long as we are identified as a body, we get to keep going towards some goals so one day we can be somebody.

Who am I? Here springs the seeking, thus a lot of people identify themselves as a spiritual “seeker”. You are not a seeker. Your mind may be a seeker, but you are not your mind.

The body itself is simply an expression of life. A poem is an expression of life. Life has its many ways of expressions. It’s like ocean has its many ways of expressions. We call them wave, spray, tide, hurricane, typhoon, tsunami… Whatever names we find for different expressions of the ocean, the ocean doesn’t care. The ocean knows itself as an ocean. The ocean doesn’t take an identity as a gorgeous summit, a gentle swing, or an angry splash though the ocean loves its all movements, enjoys its all expressions. Like our bodies, all those expressions are temporary.

If you go to a seaside, and put something floating on the surface, such as a plastic bottle, you see wave after wave comes and subsides, ebbs and flows, as if the water moves, but strange enough, the plastic bottle goes up and down with the waves, it doesn’t move away from where it is.

There is the movement, but nothing really moves. Wave, spray, tide, hurricane, typhoon, tsunami… are just names we give to the expressions of the ocean. They do not exist as a separate identity.

We are the poem by just being. There is no separate identity as a poet who writes the poem.

A real good dancer knows the best dance is to let dance happen through the body when the music comes. In another word, “be the dance” instead of being the dancer. It’s a job to be a dancer, but it’s joy to be the dance.

Be the song, instead of the singer.

You are the movement. You are not somebody who moves.

Be life. You are not some separate body who goes through day after day, living a life.