The Buddha in Glory

A blogger friend – one I’ve never met in person but with whom I share a blogging enjoyment – is fond of the Buddha and his wisdom.
by Charlie Leck

I’ve told you before that I’m reading, on a daily basis, A Year with Rilke (a collection of Rainer Maria Rilke’s writings put together by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows). Today’s reading, “The Buddha in Glory,” is from New Poems…

“Center of all centers, innermost core,
almond sweetening in its self-embrace –
all of this, out to the stars,
is the fruit of your body. We greet you.

You feel how little clings to you now.
Endlessness is your shell,
and there, too, the strength.
It is summoned by the radiance

of the full and glowing suns
that wheel around you.
Yet those stars will be outlasted
by what you have begun.”

I’ve been enriched by these Rilke readings. Santa left this small book beneath the tree this past Christmas. A wise man, this Santa! As for Rilke, he’s no Milton, Yates or even Dylan Thomas, but he is complex and mysterious and I find myself enchanted by his thinking. I keep reminding myself that I am reading him in translation and he was likely even better in his original language. Translations usually slaughter poetry. I’ve tried to read a few of the poems in the original German (it’s too tough for me after all these years).

Tony Rugare, in Cleveland, blogs almost daily. He writes what he feels like writing and it seems so often that he feels what he writes quite strongly. He’s a quiet, wise sort of fellow and I think the Buddha has had some significant impact on him. Whenever I think of Tony, I see the traditional image of the Buddha in my mind – so much so that I had to sit down here and do the above computerized etching of Tony to remind me what he really looks like. I’ve added meeting Tony and having a beer with him to my bucket list. Getting to Cleveland oughtn’t be that difficult. Maybe when the Twins are there to play a ball game or two at Jacob Field.

Keep your eye on him (Tony, Rilke, the Buddha -- or all three of them). You might also have some fun along the way.

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