there is an immense ocean over which the mind
can sail upon which thought has not yet been launched
here with thoughts of benevolence the mind of so many
thousand years has worked round and round
in circles pervading first one direction then a second
there is so much beyond all that has ever yet been
imagined as I write these words I look in a third direction
then a fourth direction then above then below
I feel the whole air the sunshine lighting up the dark
ploughed earth identifying with all existence
as I write as I exist at this second a sublime initiation
I pervade the entire universe with thought so miraculous
strange and eternal feeling compassion with heart enlarged
wide everything I see and hear boundless like the ocean
the earth the trees the hills the birds eternal
purified of all ill-will the same sun the caveman saw
rise beyond the sea he too closed his eyes
and looked into himself becoming all existence
* Found poem. Sources: Richard Jefferies Autobiography and The Brahma Viharas
© Eric Nicholson
ERIC NICHOLSON is a retired art teacher who lives in Gateshead, UK. He has followed Soto Zen for over 35 years and occasionally visits a Zen Buddhist monastery near Hexham.
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