All Else Is Okay

A poem by Tarpan.

All else is okay,
But I do miss
My chocolate croissant & a cup of tea
from the Plaza café.

All else is okay,
But I do miss those bamboo leaves
in the Buddha Grove.
How easily those dry leaves
come onto the marble floor.
Some are falling like a plunging kingfisher.
Some like a dragonfly landing.
Some leaves whirl like dervishes;
circle and circle and circle and
fall down slowly.
And no matter, what’s happening there…
people dancing joyously, sitting silently,
practicing archery or Tai Chi,
or just gossiping;
those bamboos go on showering the leaves
so gracefully, so silently.

Let Go! Let Go!

All else is okay,
But I do miss the Hoo! Hoo!
of the coucal birds.
From the top branches of the gulmohar
they do their Hoo! Hoo! anytime in the day;
exactly like the third stage of Dynamic.
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
They are literally free birds;
they don’t need to get up at 5.30 in the morning!
They manage it in their own timing.
Are they skipping the first two stages?
Or is it their fifth one?
Who knows?
Who knows not?
It’s the who of that hairsplitting koan –
WHO IS IN?
Is it so?

All else is okay,
But I do miss the silent sitting,
in the back side pyramid area.
It’s like an ‘ancient living’ activation.
The waterfall, which seems to be flowing forever and ever,
The pool, overflowing although with waste water,
timeless water lilies always turn from buds to petals to fragrance to seeds to buds,
all the time.
The banyan tree always offers a leaf bath.
The nearby Buddha head sculpture is in Vipassana,
since the beginning, it seems.
The footsteps of the cleaning staff,
the giggling noises of trolley wheels,
the calling voices of the visitors in Teerth Park;
all and everything makes me more ancient than ever;
more afresh than ever.

All else is okay,
but I do miss the waiting in front of the auditorium.
The neem leaves, the banyan leaves, are competing
to jump into the pool, and to float like water birds.
They don’t bother about the ‘silent pool of consciousness’, as they say, inside the walls.
And sometimes I too.
I am sure many of us skip some meditations, some times;
not knowing how to say bye to this ongoing silent fest.

All else is okay,
But I do miss the sharp straight walkway towards the Lao Tzu garden,
to lose myself in the shadowing leaves.
Finally, everybody has to reach to the Samadhi,
there you get the butterfly wings to the beyond.
I do miss the shaggy rolls of white socks in the basket.
The bookwalls, the me reflected all over the mirrors,
the relaxing dental chair, cushion slices stacked in the corner…
And wow! The silent galaxy!
How many stars are there, shining above?
I do count, I do count inside.
The peacock crests, I do miss.
Sometimes they stare into the nothingness,
through the moonlit glass walls.
Just beyond the transparent walls, a silver fall is laughing day and night.
Is the Buddha above smiling, or not?
He is always so, the ultimate participant!

All else is okay,
But I do miss the beauty-fragrance;
the ethereal perfume of suchness.
I do miss the ‘insights buffet’ of the bookstall,
I do miss the cock-a-doodle-doo’s
I do miss the nostalgic horns of passenger trains,
which is my favourite background score to the discourses…

Thanks all my friends, who have gone before me,
who walked in with me, whom I haven’t seen yet;
because I do miss you all…
And don’t speak like masters please – ‘You do not miss anything; missing is an illusion.’
Let me miss everything.
Let me miss everyone.
This missing is the very fulfilment,
the very fulfilment.

I do miss
I do miss
All else is okay…

Note: ‘coucal’ in English translates as ‘crow pheasant’, another name in India is ‘chakoram’, or ‘chemboth’ in Kerala.