long season of doubt

Long season of doubt draws to a close,
Barren winter finally gives way to spring,
Traditional Thai New Year begins now,
Frozen mornings notwithstanding,
Hope and faith give it one more try,
As I sat and listened to Dhamma (Dharma),
The story about the lotus once again,
Petals opening up as sunlight hits,
Like knowledge opening our eyes,
But I’m still trying to get out of the mud.
If you’re practice is sucky that’s on you—
Ajahn (teacher, monk) chides us jokingly but serious,
He can only give us what is taught,
What has been handed down these 2552 years,
The rest is up to us to work on ourselves,
So many questions not sure where to start,
My practice remains frozen in the mud,
No sitting meditation for months at a time,
Ajahn gives us the unadulterated truth,
Dhamma passed down through 102 generations.
What you think and do,
Is it of benefit to others and to you?
Sometimes but not always,
Still self-destructive after all these years,
Thinking leads to talking which leads to doing,
How many lifetimes will it take to undo all my wrongs,
How many wrongs have I committed in past lifetimes,
Is there really an end to this vicious cycle,
Or is it all just a morality tale,
Ajahn just trying to keep us in line?
The Tao of Physics rears its head once again,
Alternate realities and wormholes perhaps real,
So the scientists claim,
Bound by faith to things they can’t see,
Dark matter making up 97% of all there is,
But yet we can’t see it/hold it/prove it,
Gravity pulls us to terra firma,
Echoes of a fourth dimension we’ll never know,
Unless that’s where we all go from here,
The afterlife/the beyond/heaven and hell.
Hard to believe this universe just happened,
Just randomly came about through lucky accidents,
What are the chances/the probability,
A trillion-to-one/infinity-to-none,
Just for one event let alone billions,
That produced this universe and this world,
Countless happy accidents that lead to now,
These are all interesting questions,
But the wrong ones to ask,
Or so Ajahn would probably say.
Glimpses and shadows of something else,
Us living in this three-dimensional universe,
What lies beyond what lies in the fourth and fifth,
Mediation/mental development/states of consciousness,
A sliver of the whole picture,
We never use more than ten percent of our brains,
What is the other ninety percent capable of,
Stories about levitation/telepathy/telekinesis,
Not that important in the Buddhist sense,
Just by-products of the real work to be done.
What does this meditation do in the end?
Open the doors to perception of the beyond?
Bring us to the ground of being,
Face to face with God and ourselves,
Give us an entrance into the unknown,
Vast universes and realities outside or own?
The cessation of birth and rebirth,
Is this merely and analogy or is it real,
Nibbhana (Nirvana) being the end result,
Do we just sit and watch the show,
From dimensions far removed?
It is said that the Dhamma will always exist,
In one form or another in some place,
The social/historical/cultural trappings will fall away,
But the truth remains just the same,
Always and forever through eons of time,
This universe in a speck,
Infinity in one single moment,
The nothingness that encapsulates all,
The middle of the lotus blossom,
When all the pedals have fallen away.