String Theory (after Shantideva)

Reflections from the Burning House

Before we were born,
A sparkling mystery
Built affinity into our potential
And magnetized energy into
Glue to set these elemental strings
Within our being vibrating
From plans laid 
Behind a veil yet
Right next to you and me.

Before we fully came to be,
Our molecular selves 
Thoroughly divined
This string connection
Beneath our seeming separation
And with our birth,
Began the lifelong struggle 
Against the illusion 
Of inner constituency

Our ego maniacal selves

To nourish instead a firmer grasp
Upon the love and kinship 
These string ties sustain between
Each and everyone of us
And everything.

But like a dream, 
we forget the details

Except when momentarily enlivened 
By some hidden will or longing
Extending from our broken hearts
Into the Universe and back
Down to the earth’s deep core,
Emanating from verdant trees
Or inside the sudden surprise of
Wild birds and animals,
Deep blue waters,
The scent of sage,
Mountain ranges
Or desert cacti
Still surviving.

And what do we aspire towards?

This nightmare’s hopeless hammering
Of oil-fed consumption? 

This murderous march
Of white men parading tailored suits?

This life in flux,
Sheep in stalls, 
Obtuse and blindly flinging our meat 
From slaughterhouse to garbage dump, 
Desperately convinced
Of our own powerlessness? 

Born to the promise 
And tragedy
Of these strings binding us 
To this time  

Please press your fingertips
Into whatever soil lies nearby
As eagles cry above to meet you,
As refugees fight red river mud
To flee past empty hopes
And find love’s distant delta,
Or simply try to rest upon a dusty 
City bench or ponder our golden
Nicknacks through shop windows
In despair.

Then, for once,
Become a Buddha seeking
Earth’s help to
Arrange their rescue,
Self-denying and exhausted,
Hand turned downward 
To touch the ground,
Facing off with
Mara and his daughters:
Tanhā, lustful desire, 
Arati, rage and discontent, 
and Rāga, longing and attachment.

Find this power awaiting you
Within this residue of stars that 
Nature adheres your blood and bones
Into with gravity and physics just to
Repurpose the inestimable beauty
By which you’re made,
And continually renew you,
Situated as you are
Uniquely among all beings 

Right here, right now,
Animate, inanimate, 
You, an extension of 
The Earth herself,
Created to create, 
Anticipate, investigate
And then to act toward preservation,
Opposing the annihilation 
Of what must always endure,
Or to step aside to 
Make room for 
What will soon be born.

You are really this important.

We are the same strings
From which all of “This” is made.
Something-much-more
In-between 
Within, behind, or well beyond 
These futile words I write
Arises with a calm 
And ancient certainty
Enveloping and surrounding you and me 
And never ceasing 
To whisper repeatedly:
 
Know the value of this life you’re given
Know the value of every life, and
Trust, protect, and ally with all life.

And from there, 
Perturb complacency and apathy,
Grow harder, tougher fibers and
Become wiser, speak directly,
Entwining much more
Sternly, deliberately, 
A blooming flower 
Encouraging the bloom of others, and
Preparing to meet the downpour
Because it’s coming, 
And you know what you know, so
Trust yourself and
Find your strength 
Arising through the roots
We all share, the strings themselves,
And in this way, 
Get ready to 
Face down lightening’s 
Flash and thunder.

Your purpose being
To reseed 
Justice, 
Love, and
Peace,
Nothing more, 
Nothing less.
 
We flowers come and go,
And we are the appointed stewards of our garden
And our children’s
And their children’s,
Beyond the earth and sky.

Here lies the path of the heart:
Your promise to channel this Infinite Love, 
And send it soaring high above this dreary overcast, and

I hope we may do this work together.

Feed the starving
Literally, 
Figuratively, 
Generously,
No matter how prosperous or
Deprived,
And no matter how 
Preposterous
We’re judged to be in what
We believe and do

It feels so much better to
Eschew attachment
To useless and ephemeral things, 
To abandon fake privileges
Behind which injustice and brutality
Lurk and sneak and hide

Then step up beside the oppressed and
Meet adversity alongside them,
The displaced and the fugitive,
And find there some place from which to see and
Better treat this deadly dis-ease
Afflicting all of us

Like Vimalakirti,
Prince of inexhaustible kindness,
Open up your palace gates
To whoever needs hiding,
Help, shelter, food,
Home, furniture, compassion, music,
Unending love and protection
Without “concern for my own safety”
When the safety of everyone has been upended.

To reach for this,
We first simplify our selves, 
And then simplify our lives,
Keeping in mind how we arise,
And so soon, begin to fade, so
Walk the path of moderation,
In what we buy and eat
And where we go 
We make offerings with
Equanimity, humility, tolerance,
Cultivating fearlessness,
Through awareness of our temporary nature,
And our always imminent transition. 

With practice, 
No one 
And no thing 
Can truly harm us.

With practice,
We need not be so often afraid

(Although life preserves itself,
And strings long to adhere beyond their given time,
And we may feel at times so afraid,
We need not be alone in our fears.)

Continually bearing in mind
Our fleeting nature
Alongside our deeply felt responsibility,
And so to feel grateful 
Even when rattled by death’s chains,
Like idealistic freedom riders in 1961,
Like the longshoremen in San Francisco in 1934
Or peaceful picketers against Republic Steel in 1937,
All walking together through tears of demolition,
Like those laying down on tracks
Blocking the trains in India while soldiers
Beat them with clubs,
Their stalwart non-violent resistance.

How did these humans come by such courage?
Remembering how many others before
Willingly made such sacrifices
For sake of the lives of others must’ve
Strengthened their resolve,
If it could mean the end of 
Suffering that should not 
Survive one moment longer, and 
Has already so often nearly destroyed us,
And all life:

This resurgent hatred,
Its sick, fanatical disregard 
For our wider family 
All our relatives,
This Earth, 
This land, and its beauty,
This malice seeping repeatedly
From behind the curtain 
Of our own shadows,
So long intent upon breaking
The binding vow we’ve made
Implicit or explicit with
Our children, 
Our ancestors, 
And our Source 
And Noble Origin.

Now let us retake this vow 
To oppose hatred 
With our own lives
And thwart its every attempt 
To invade and further dominate 
Our hearts, minds, and souls.

Love is the essence 
Of this string theory,
The glue by which these strings are made

And a hidden but great blessing lies
In being alive right now, 
At such a time
As this, and to have the chance,
To establish the ascendancy
Once and for all of

The sacredness of all life

And in making this effort,
To be tested 
Again and again 

By the trivial concerns
Of a dying age,
Already past tense.

We are here to make the next one.

Not by quieting griefs
And worries that awaken us at night
But through the pain of rebirth itself, 
Inspiring whatever righteous words 
And fervent actions,
Will finally mix a balm to ease 
The fear and dread of everyone
And bring a lasting Great Peace
Well beyond this time.

Hardship and heroic struggle, 
What else is new 
In being a real human being?

This pregnant pause in sustenance
Awaits us, outside the fortress of our fears,
Deprivation, illness, perhaps demise,
Unwarranted, unnecessary, unbidden, yes,
This storm of our own making
We must now endure it together
On the way to Something Better.

How then shall we live?
What shall we live for?
And what is worth dying for?

Our ancestors knew such times 
Arriving in so many disguises but always the same,
The chaotic, time-worn, constant churn of tyranny,
Portending dissolution, and
Always fortuitously placed beside

The blessed gift of conscious human agency

But not quite like this one, not quite like now,
Converging here on every living person’s destiny

No, hesitation has been canceled this time,
And not choosing is a choice itself.

This being the theory I suggest by which
We should look harder now at all that’s happening
Between the weaving of the strings being reaffirmed
And the imminent unraveling of abundance
That so far preserves even our possibility

To decide and to act.