Buddha in Glory
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond, that closes tightly in and sweetens,–
this entire world out to all the stars
is your fruit-flesh: we greet you.
Look, you feel how nothing any longer
clings to you; your husk is in infinity,
and there the strong juice stands and crowds.
And from outside a radiance assists it,
for high above, your suns in full splendor
have wheeled blazingly around.
Yet already there’s begun inside you
what lasts beyond the suns.
—Ranier Maria Rilke, translated by Edward Snow
from New Poems
“If you bring forth the genius within you,” said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, “it will free you. If you do not bring forth the genius within you, it will destroy you.” Is there any aspect of the genius within you that you’re not bringing forth? If so, what can you do to change that?
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT from Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology
Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, and soften your heart—even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections.
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
You’re a star—and so am I. I’m a genius—and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn’t require my defeat, and vice versa. Those are the rules in the New World—quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play. In the New World, you don’t have to play down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.
