We are grateful to Anna Aysea for this entry on our blog, this week – Buddha in Glory, indeed.
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
– by Rainer Maria Rilke
English version by Stephen Mitchell
It is said the poem Buddha in Glory came to Rilke when meditating seated in front of a Buddha statue in the garden.
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