{"id":1033,"date":"2017-07-31T23:06:45","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T23:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olioweb.me.uk\/wordpress_marcus\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2024-08-19T15:41:57","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T15:41:57","slug":"poem-of-the-month-august-2017-from-a-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/?p=1033","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month, August 2017: From a Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

FROM A NOTEBOOK<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deep within me
\nis the conviction
\nAmida will always be there.<\/p>\n

Namo Amida Butsu
\nis what I NEED
\nmore than anything else.<\/p>\n

Listen to his Voice,
\ngo straight into action
\nand do the next best thing.<\/p>\n

Keep it simple,
\nempty the mind of hakarai
\nand say nembutsu.<\/p>\n

Calm me down, Amida,
\nopen a door in my heart
\nand set me free.<\/p>\n

– ‘Namo Amida Butsu’
\n– ‘Keep calling my Name and I will come.’<\/p>\n

Sometimes there’s too much
\nself-power in my nembutsu
\nfor my liking.<\/p>\n

Amida’s power
\ndoes not ‘sometimes go away’.
\nIt’s with me always.<\/p>\n

It’s hard enough to be human oneself.
\nHelping another is highly dodgy.<\/p>\n

For Japanese Shin Buddhists
\nsoaked in centuries of teaching
\nBirth must be a cinch.<\/p>\n

No jetlag in the Pure Land.
\nYou arrive there fresh as a daisy.<\/p>\n

I hear the trees
\nin the Pure Land singing
\nNamo Amida Butsu.<\/p>\n

Most people are much
\ncleverer than me. I just
\nrecite Amida’s Name.<\/p>\n

I harbour no resentments,
\nnot a single one –
\nat peace with the world.<\/p>\n

Nothing on my mind,
\nI bumble round this city
\nmumbling nembutsu.<\/p>\n

Everything tells me to do nothing.
\n‘Go home and enjoy the garden.’<\/p>\n

Namo Amida Butsu
\nopens the Pure Land gate
\nand lets us in.<\/p>\n

Kuan Yin is a pure
\nand fully rewarded Buddha
\nin her own right.<\/p>\n

Namu Avalokitesvara,
\nyou were with me in the sixties,
\nlong before I joined the Sangha,
\nlong before I’d heard of Belgium.<\/p>\n

Namo Amida Butsu
\nthe one sure path
\nout of samsaric life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FROM A NOTEBOOK Deep within me is the conviction Amida will always be there. Namo Amida Butsu is what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}