“RIGHT NOW, IT’S LIKE THIS.”― AJAHN SUMEDHO
Now, it’s like this:
billions of stars wheel through the universe
twirling planets and moons,
flinging out carbon and gold, uranium and ice across the depths of space.
Now, it’s like this:
four thousand satellites swarm above our skies,
chattering incessantly
in raucous roller-derby orbit.
Now, it’s like this:
continents of air
heat and cool,
rise and fall,
push rain, stir sands
from Sahara to Shangri-La.
Now, it’s like this:
predators and prey tangle
in a thrilling dance
of food, sex, death, and rebirth.
Now, it’s like this:
cities churn, pulse, and hum with electric life.
Taxis and trucks vie for purchase on choked streets.
Horns, gunshots, jackhammers, hydraulic steam, clanging metal.
Now, it’s like this:
Human beings fuck and fight.
Mothers push out babies.
The dying push out breath.
Millions upon millions of stories buzz
billions of protagonists
trillions of supporting players.
Love stories, family dramas, murders–
ambition, deceit, redemption,
transcendence, betrayal, triumphs
and falls.
Now, it’s like this:
miles of veins
thread through bands of muscle, organs, and tubes.
Cells divide. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out.
Hearts beat with the “Force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
Breath travels brachia, swells sacs, enters blood.
Eyes see, ears hear, fingers touch.
Lightning storms of neurons crackle along gray matter.
Lobes light up with language, images, and emotions;
with fight, flight, and freeze.
Now, it’s like this:
behind these cosmic phenomena is a kernel of awareness we like to call ‘I.’
We believe we are somehow separate from the ten thousand things that make us.
Now, it’s like this:
this very moment is an opportunity
to drop beneath the fret and furrow of habitual self.
To find liberation in the fact that
now, it’s like this.
