Buddhist poetry
I'm not aware of the existence of much Buddhist poetry (aside from the great Zen haiku-writers: Basho, etc.), but a battered old anthology of scriptures that I own contains some lovely verses by the Hindi poet Saraha. This excerpt reminds me somewhat of the passage in the Song of Songs where the Shulamite goes outside in the middle of the night to seek her lover:
"There is one Lord revealed in many scriptures,
Who becomes clearly manifest at your wish.
"The Lord is oneself, and the enemy is other people:
This is the belief that people hold in their houses.
But she goes outside and looks for her master.
"He is not seen to come, nor to stay, nor to go;
Signless and motionless the supreme Lord is.
"If you do not leave off coming and going,
How can you gain this rare one, this splendor?" --Saraha
The dichotomy between indoors (the interiors of houses, wherein the conventional townsfolk collectively stagnate amid their naive beliefs about self vs. other) and outdoors (the site of the singular female protagonist's earnest seeking for the splendid rarity of oneness) is interestingly laid out here, I think. There are also some apparent contradictions here, which I don't really understand: like, if the one Lord becomes clearly manifest "at your wish," then why does the protagonist have such a hard time finding him?
"There is one Lord revealed in many scriptures,
Who becomes clearly manifest at your wish.
"The Lord is oneself, and the enemy is other people:
This is the belief that people hold in their houses.
But she goes outside and looks for her master.
"He is not seen to come, nor to stay, nor to go;
Signless and motionless the supreme Lord is.
"If you do not leave off coming and going,
How can you gain this rare one, this splendor?" --Saraha
The dichotomy between indoors (the interiors of houses, wherein the conventional townsfolk collectively stagnate amid their naive beliefs about self vs. other) and outdoors (the site of the singular female protagonist's earnest seeking for the splendid rarity of oneness) is interestingly laid out here, I think. There are also some apparent contradictions here, which I don't really understand: like, if the one Lord becomes clearly manifest "at your wish," then why does the protagonist have such a hard time finding him?