Within the body you are wearing, now
inside the bones and beating in the heart,
lives the one you have been searching for so long.
But you must stop running away and shake hands,
the meeting doesn’t happen
without your presence . . . your participation.
The same one waiting for you there
is moving in the trees, glistening on the water,
growing in the grasses and lurking in the shadows you create.
You have nowhere to go.
The marriage happened long ago.
Behold your mate.
by Robert K. Hall
It makes sense to me that these words were written by a Dharma teacher, who taught in various Centres in California and died in November 2019. This poem was my introduction to Robert K Hall, and from the glimpses I got from him though an Ecosia search, he seems like a man who easily could be learned from. I read that he claimed that “most of his training, however, comes from being a father and grandfather, mentor and lover, since learning to love well is his life’s work.”
And yes, what a rich invitation to love ‘the one’ in this poem! I love the inevitability of it: you can meet ‘within the body you are wearing’ or in the world around you, and ‘the marriage happened a long time ago’. Just one little condition: ‘to stop running away’, to show up.
I’m ready to stop, right now…
Photo by Jordan Steranka on Unsplash