By Miriam Goldberg

Of Grief

And of grief,

carry it not as a burden

Though you are bent

to breaking, and beyond

do not carry it as a burden.

Instead, bow down to it

on your knotted hands

cracked elbows, scarred knees

Bow down in it

as deep as you can go.

Fall past the tearing

at your own soul

through the loss

that calls you

to leave everything behind

and join

with what has gone.

Sink into that –

until you know

the whole universe has changed,

irrevocably,

that nothing will be the same

ever again

until you know this so deeply

that you understand

nothing ever was the same,

ever ever. ever . . .

The bewildered, anguished

weeping of your flesh

that so delighted in and feared

change

now trembles and shakes.

Meet this utter loss.

Meet it. And bear witness

while it is stripped of everything

but its helplessness -

no skin, no bones, no face,

yet looks you straight in the eye

while it crumbles.

And becomes something

it didn’t know existed,

something that knows

grief is the resonant echo

of life sounding

the depths of change,

and carries grief

not as a burden, but as a truth,

a gossamer extension of life,

light, delicate filaments,

illuminating infinity,

in which it bows

and begins to dance.

The first time I visited Plum Village I stepped out of the transport van into the small courtyard of New Hamlet. A timeless welcome flowed through the old shutters lining the thick walls around me. I was told to put my bags down, register inside, find my room, and then come back into the dining area for a little more orientation. My way wound through narrow hallways to the barrack style beds in the dorm room. The feel of old stones and something quiet made my body smile.

Free from my luggage, I returned to the courtyard, walked back up the few stairs of the entryway, and turned right towards the dining room. As I stepped over the threshold, a gentle tidal wave of energy washed over and through me. Astonished, and in awe, I couldn’t move, nor did I want to. I stood there in awakened gratitude, feeling the magic and reality of longing fulfilled, as every cell in me was bathed in the experience of Well-Being. My feet felt fully connected to the earth. Everything was open. Everything was here. I had arrived.

In each subsequent retreat at Plum Village, I felt the fruit of practice alive in the air. It was all around: a deeply nourishing presence my whole body received. But even as I recognized it, I did not experience it residing in me or easily accessible through my breath. Inside, I was more aware of a lingering sense of dismay and searching. My breath would slow into something other than peace, a tension or fear, or a deep and almost motionless hiding.

Through the years, the collective presence of the Plum Village Sangha offered me steady solidity and cradled my mind, heart, and body energies. This deep Sangha support allowed and called layers of distress to arise in repeated attempts to be seen and tended by mindfulness, often accompanied by a helplessness and despair that held hostage my suffering and eclipsed love. Even though I felt I was swimming upstream, I knew I was steeping in something as precious as anything I had known: a key to the end of suffering.

I slowly learned which images, concentration, and inner mantras brought me ease. The solidity of earth that supports me as I sit and as I walk, the sun that warms us wherever we are, and gradually, an unwinding of tension into restfulness. My metta meditation became: “May I know that in me which is always peaceful. May I know that in me which is always safe. May I know that in me which is always happy,” and so on. The extended verse followed the forms: “May you know that in you” and “May we know that in us.” The certainty affirmed in this practice kept my rudder set on the truth.

Over many years, and much exploration and perseverance, the “personal contact, images, and sounds,” to which the Fourth Mindfulness Training (Awareness of Suffering) alludes, brought a solid remembrance of Presence I could trust. With right diligence, I felt the fruits of practice offer me increasing nourishment. And gradually, my breath began to harmonize with the eternal Presence of Well-Being until it found its own rhythm and opened its wings into freedom. The loveliness of life began to walk hand in hand with the suffering.

The two poems, “Of Grief ” and “This Life,” describe some treasures I found while walking the Plum Village path. I offer them with gratitude for the Sangha, the Dharma, the Buddha, and Thay.

This Life

What is this life?

if not a great

lifting of wings

from earth to the heavens,

the whole universe

opening

with the dive

into deep space.

Stars’ delighted twinklings

welcome us

into an exquisitely infinite smile

melting our hearts

to eternal love.

Here, a gentle knowing

whispers us

on feather soft wings

to that very point

where our toes

touch unto earth

and into our lives.

Our roots

sink deep,

endlessly renewing.