All reality is deception
Feelings and characterisations
The citta sańkhāra (चित्त संस्कार)
Fabricated at the gates of perception

Neither this persuasive truth
Nor the opinions of others
Can truthfully be trusted at all

And to see through the design
Is to direct its flow and
Influence its effect

To see the pattern is to not
Be deceived by the deception
To not struggle towards an
Imaginary truth, lost in the folds
Of complex philosophies
When instead, it is to be found
Right at the heart of deception

For it is well known that
Those who succeed,
Expect success
And those who fail
Fear failure
The habitually fearful
Have moments of hope
The habitually hopeful
Have moments of fear

For these objects that
Pull you asunder with
Promises of wealth and wonder
That you, weary traveller,
Gladly accept, in bargain
Forgoing possibilities
Richer and vaster
Because you doubtfully
And half-heartedly pursue
Things in all their lustre
Without stopping once to ask
Why they muster so many
With their pomp of bluster

Even at your best and noblest
You want to get to something
To health, to revelation, to divinity
And this getting to gets you nowhere
As you try, you prevent

For consciousness centred in the ego
Tends to subjugate and dominate
All that roams freely and is
Not bound its rules of reason

But to freely explore possibilities
Is to welcome all that is irrational
To not try to direct their flow but
Anticipate their pleasant surprises
To receive their message
And let them go

To not risk the pain
Is to risk it all in the
Deceptive arms of comfort
For its seductive illusion
Masks the pain of awareness

This pain is you
A reflection of your
Own naked vulnerability

This pain reveals
The uncertainty within
For the world reflects your
Uncertainty back at you

This pain reveals
The frustration within
The loneliness and sadness
Of your longing to share

Tendencies (tendens) is a
Stretching to, towards, but
Back to well-known things
And like a spoilt child
Knows only when it is
Satisfied or crossed

Much experienced habit
Habituates the mind and
Catalyses the actions that follow
Like wine that permeates
The wood of its cask
Habit treacles through
The deep structures of
Unchangeable personality
And personal identity

Beyond which logic cannot go
Things half-seen and half-heard so
In expression, complexion, inflection
Tone, colour, shape, and other
Feeling textures that arrive whole
Unlike the myriad little steps of
Well-ordered reasoning
Like a seed that germinates
When conditions are ripe
To recognise the pattern in the
Noble proportions given to sense

Self-consciousness is you
From the outside looking in
And seeing all that is ugly
Self-awareness is you
From the inside looking out
And seeing the beauty of all

Ego-consciousness seeks to
Subjugate and dominate all that is
Not bound by its rules of reason
Ego-awareness seeks to
Liberate the self from the bondage
Of its own rules and injunctions

And a consciousness that is aware
Sees neighbours and also the sun
And is with all as is with none
Feels adequate unto itself
To find and discover
Without condemning the soul to be
Attended by the hound of identity

Self-consciousness is you
From the outside looking in
And seeing all that is ugly
Self-awareness is you
From the inside looking out
And seeing the beauty of all

Ego-consciousness seeks to
Subjugate and dominate all that is
Not bound by its rules of reason
Ego-awareness seeks to
Liberate the self from the bondage
Of its own rules and injunctions

And a consciousness that is aware
Sees neighbours and also the sun
And is with all as is with none
Feels adequate unto itself
To find and discover
Without condemning the soul to be
Attended by the hound of identity

Denizens of the world of desire
With elevated mind, senses refined
Pursue all that is rare or novel
Believing them needful things
For comfort, pleasure, and ease

And striving to reach them
Only find them transformed
In the distance ahead
And to possess one thing
Means to relinquish others
To find scarcity in affluence

Scarcity is perceived discontinuity
In a dynamic and continuous world
An illusion of absence created
By what is always present:
Love, respect, belonging, happiness

Balance ye gentle swarm
Of innumerable cysts of identity
A self of disconnected
Impulses, thoughts, reactions,
Opinions, and sensations

A whirlpool in perpetual motion
To keep its form and stability:
The sum total of the balances
Between body and mind,
Mind and universe,
Body and universe

And what causes this swarm
To sway this way or that
Matters less than any stance
You take for or against other selves
Of your protean, ever-changing self

To always want and not have
To always find fear and never
Find its cause or reach its nexus
To continue seeing without seeing
And inferring from half-heard sounds
Saving face while losing sight
Of what matters

To need as much as the mind wants
Knowing that its wants are infinite
And as it’s elevated and refined,
More capable of delight
Wanting all that’s precious
To adorn the body and
Gratify its senses
And then kept with
The most anxious attention