Liber Terrae - Chapter 36

Verses

When the Tempter demanded a witness, the Awakened One touched the ground.

He did not point upward.

Consider this before you make heaven an excuse for neglecting the floor beneath you.

Earth is called solid, yet stone becomes sand, sand becomes mud, mud dries, mountains become seabeds, and bodies become meals for roots.

Solidity is a habit of perception measured against a short life.

The body too is an earth-element arrangement temporarily insisting on a name.

Pain says, “This is mine.” Wisdom asks whether ownership reduces the pain.

A monk watched a cat stalk a lizard and said, “Cruel world.” His teacher replied, “You added the adjective.”

The lizard would have preferred the adjective to have teeth removed from the cat.

Compassion is not pretending suffering is only a concept.

Emptiness does not make the wound unreal to the wounded.

Touch the Earth not to ask it to save you, but to stop floating away in your explanations.

Enlightenment that cannot survive contact with dirt is probably imagination wearing clean robes.