Seven-Sonnet Cycle for Falun Dafa Day

I.

I’ve found the benefits meditation
Can offer you are unquestionable,
Yet, meditating itself is unable
To induce some wondrous transformation.
Your closed eyes and limbs’ cessation
Put you on par with the blind and disabled;
And you are no more than them capable
Of improving your body’s constitution.

As for your mind? It is wiped clean;
When done, your tranquil state is a white suit
Stained by even the purest of earth's fruit,
Absorbing all the colors most obscene.

That’s why each day I study the Buddha’s Law,
Lest my pristine mind be soaked with flaw.

II.

How deep and profound is the ancient Way
That has guided so many truth seekers
And takes those elements, crude and weaker,
Sublimating them for no reward or pay.
Now as Falun Dafa today,
At a time that has never seemed bleaker,
When there’s persecution of truth seekers,
It manifests the perennial Way.

It teaches looking inside in conflicts,
Striving toward what is true, kind, and pure,
Removing pursuits and attachments
While still following the course of nature.

With each new insight comes a new level,
And a new weapon against the devil.

III.

Satan is here! He is communism,
He is the evil that chokes man’s nature
And makes people think that there is no cure
For its problems outside atheism
That bitter and shallow pessimism,
Of a soul it cannot even be sure
Or something spiritual you felt occur,
All that’s left is empty hedonism.

“Stand with me and fight the devil’s forces!”
Yells the intrepid celestial captain,
“Cherish virtue, be good, and stay the course,
This war of the heart is one we can win!”

His legions of light fly from the palace
A determined look upon each one’s face.

IV.

Majestic setting without walls or roof
Behind the matter our two eyes perceive,
Behind false ideas that science believes,
Expanding to where a God sits aloof,
Once you’ve seen it you need no concrete proof,
All that man could hope to build and achieve
The greatest ideas man hopes to conceive,
Seem no more than a silly children’s spoof.

All around me, such resplendent beauty,
An elaborate and translucent world
Floats by, through the years gaining clarity;
More and more of heaven’s breadth is unfurled.

Yet, from the human realm, the mission calls,
For beings I’ve come to save, I won’t stall.

V.

The splendor of Christmas: a shining tree
With a star that lights the year’s darkest days,
Providing a warm and festive display
of pure joy at being alive and free.
Yet, there discovered upon that bright tree,
Upon one small light on that merry day,
A tiny speck of Chinese blood displayed,
Like the blood of Jesus in front of me.

A bleeding Falun Dafa practitioner
Toils in the labor camp, day and night,
Facing regular beatings and torture
Meant to destroy mankind’s most basic rights.

But who’s the biggest victim of them all?
The ones so duped as to not be appalled.

VI.

Wake up, man! We live in a human place,
People get angry, they fight and have wars,
Some have very little and some have more,
This is the condition of our flawed race.
There is actually very little space
Between this realm and the next, a thin door;
So, all the interpersonal rancor
And fighting with tradition are misplaced.

What matters is each crystalline moment,
What’s in your heart and if it can be true
To your family, country, mankind, to you,
Yourself, and all those who before you went.

At the crossroads of human existence,
Choose virtue and make a real difference.

VII.

The ebullient allure of winter’s end
Saturates the defrocked and war-torn earth
Like the tiny buds coyly springing forth
This benevolent force we can’t comprehend
In the universe we can’t understand
Has now in supreme splendor given birth
To an epic tale of sorrow and mirth
That shall guide us around this cosmic bend.

What mystery does this new journey hold?
What new circumstances we never thought
Possible could now amazingly unfold
And what is to become of what we’ve sought?

A Chinese man interrupts me and says,
“Here’s a balloon for Falun Dafa Day!”

Spring 2012