Buddhist Poetry: "The Dukkha Path" by Elizabeth Barrette

[ysabetwordsmith]

I find Buddhism interesting, though it's not a path I follow personally. I've written a fair bit of poetry that touches on similar motifs, especially haiku. Most Buddhist poetry tends to focus on enlightenment. But there's a shadow side to the system that reveals what goes on in the unenlightened mind. Dukkha is the concept of suffering from wrong choices or thoughts, and how the harm caused to another can also complicate one's own life. So for contrast I picked a poem along this angle.

The Dukkha Path
by Elizabeth Barrette

Dread like a blast of sleet-toothed wind,
Hatred like a lake of boiling lead,
Resentment like a field of deep green nettles,
Frustration like a wall of fist-dented bricks,
Anger like a forest of pines on fire,
Sorrow like a riverbed parched to mud,
Disappointment like a mist of receding mirages,
Regret like a yard of bleached white bones,
Exhaustion like a bog without a bottom,
All laid out under a sullen sky --

These places where you have led me
Now lie before you,
Placed in your path by the actions of your own hand.

Comments

[bookblather]

That is very appropriate imagery for the selected emotions, and the impact of that last line; ouch. Very Buddhist.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I think Buddhism really comes down to "how not to hit yourself over the head." So much of human misery is self-caused. You'd think people would pay more attention to instructions for avoiding that, but usually they are just baffled.