Swept together upon the ashy wind, swept away by scorched earth, yet remaining in the three spaces, where forms cannot be named or touched; the dance by firelight, moonlight, and starlight flows, uninterrupted.
All thought continues and flows, unimpeded; all delight remains and there is no sorrow; all fears and curses, rebuked by virtue; all peaceful and wrathful faces surround; all awareness-holders watching; all protectors, wreathed in blazing siddhi, encircling; all fulfillment, found.
Om ah hung vajra guru pema siddhi hung! The acrid scent of scorched earth, an incense, rises still from the bones of kodo and the ashes of burnt pages; stomped into dust by insistent feet that never still.
Breathe it in, tonglen, and know its fullness; breathe it out and create release; finding no difference in all differences, be still and know what is.
In freedom found, in freedom lost, yes and no, neither and both; there are not enough stones to build the wall that would stand between, in every breath, across mouth or miles, no distance.
The weight of the stone that does not exist, we exchange; like breath, taken and given, pitched as if onto the fire, still it remains, in every palm, even yours, still mine, the same; a great lump of amber that warms and then cools to touch, to thought.
In this moment, I am laughing; great and glorious guffaws! Whose words are these? What vessel is this? How many drops of urine shall it take to cement the wall that never was into being?
I wave to you across the circle, through the infinite flames, and stand me up but a moment; kneel, stretch out, forehead and fingers to the dust; pebbles and loose sands receive the prostration as I kiss the ground and whisper softly, oh so softly, “Still.”