MARC OLMSTED


        MIND TRAINING

I.
Lucky to be alive & meditate in a human body, even sick - Death around the corner, big axe - Karma ripening continual rain of white & black Heaven & Earth swollen misery I remember my root teacher w/relief
II.
cabin walls a flickering movie? Doug whistling for lunch dream-like? If he interrupts this poem, will I wake up?
III.
Dream: I look for Lama Lodrū Kagyu teacher friend hearing he's ill & I'm ill, too - I enter his room and he says "I've been trying to find you - I wanted you to know illness is just phenomena"
IV.
- Remember Buddha's heart in all beings w/ determination - Visit regularly - No vacations - Reproach ego's lie - Aspire to no effort
V.
Angry thought of punching him - Grief, I'm crying on the floor - Joyful mind is sometimes with me - Regret my dark reward - I hollered for my guru - Hit my hand 'til swollen blue - Sometimes I praise the Dharma - Intention gets me through -
VI.
Maybe the storm's done - the outside washing machine hums mystically while the jays discuss plans - yes, I'm discouraged but at 40 I wait it out - pray - mind's lies will perish I am certain - the washer suddenly ceases when I write "certain"
VII.
I can't just save my mother, all beings having been her - can't just save myself a phantom, moon in the rain barrel - I put Peter S.' photo dying AIDS in the small frame near my practice table - all beings won't fit there - may they fit in empty heart


BLOOD-DRINKING GURU



Dream:

I am on a gurney

	unable to

  move, maybe strapped

down in some hospital -

  there are others around

me - a nurse

  comes up - dressed

more like a career

  woman - and slips

a Tibetan offering

scarf - a kata -

  over my face

  and prepares an

  injection - under

  my chin I think -

  "We're draining

your blood" the

         shot some sort

of knock-out or

    anesthetic to

keep me from struggling

- I get it, it's a

    vampire scheme -

all these bodies to

  be milked - "Who's

getting my blood?"

    "Your teacher," she

says - No shit,

  I think, what

a dupe I've been!

as they wheel me away


[In Tantric symbolism, the wrathful wisdom being drinks the hot blood of ego - so 

	this dream  can be seen as auspicious, if paranoid.]