from diggin’ on django:

the vow

its the beginning of winter

and i'm waiting

for another bear dream,

one with lots of sleep in it,

i could use lots of sleep.

and inside that sleep there will be stars,

maybe the whole milky way,

i could use stars too.

i'll be out on the river in my boat,

the boat that i have wanted forever.

it will be summer, i will be alone,

the only sounds i will hear are the waves

lapping against the sides of the boat,

small tongues tasting the fiber glass hull,

tasting my boat's sweetness,

in the total blackness sweetness night.

but next to that blackness,

that sweetness,

next to the bear dreams

and the milky way visions,

i have found my way back to india,

to maharashtra

and i am taking the short cut to the ashram,

i am walking thru a vacant lot

next to and underneath the bridge

and there are tiny hovels everywhere,

plastic bag, gunny sack, cardboard hovels,

almost naked folks wandering about,

sleeping in those hovels, cooking their rice

on small kerosene stoves outside those hovels,

chatting with each other,

smoking their beedies,

and just a short walk away,

just feet away

their piles of runny shit

laying alongside the path

i'm walking,

and i realize these people,

beyond skinny and cold,

often miserable,

have probably not had

a good solid shit their entire lives.

and suddenly i remember

all my time in the zendo,

all that time facing the wall

watching my breath

and the vow i repeated daily:

"sentient beings are numberless, i vow to save them.
the deluding desires are inexhaustible, i vow to end them.
the dharma gates are boundless, i vow to enter them,
the buddha's way is unsurpassable, i vow to attain it."