Beyond Reach

Beneath an ancient cedar tree,

A monk sits where the world grows still,

Upon a mountain's mist-veiled crown,

Beyond the reach of thought and will.

Below him, clouds like oceans roll,

Their silver tides without a shore;

Above, the heavens open wide,

Where stars drift through a boundless door.

He closes his eyes. The earth falls silent.

The wind forgets the paths it knew.

The mountain loosens from the world,

And floats beneath an endless blue.

No longer bound by earth or stone,

The summit rises, hushed and slow,

An island in the sea of sky,

Adrift where timeless currents flow.

Upon that isle, a temple rests,

Its ancient bells untouched by time;

Its curved roofs cradle drifting clouds,

Its gates stand open to the sublime.

The monk sits still beneath his tree,

While mist curls softly through the eaves.

The temple floats within the sky,

And stars descend among the leaves.

He watches without reaching out.

He listens without seeking sound.

The sky is neither high nor low;

The earth is neither lost nor found.

He remembers what the sages taught:

That beauty needs its shadow's grace,

That light and darkness shape each other,

That opposites share a single face.

The mountain rises from the valley,

Yet cannot stand without the deep.

The temple floats above the clouds,

Yet rests where unseen currents sweep.

The near depends upon the distant.

The silence gives the bell its tone.

The seed contains the forest's promise,

And no true thing exists alone.

He breathes.

The island drifts through fields of mist.

The temple glows in morning light.

A thousand worlds arise and vanish

Within the stillness of his sight.

He breathes again.

The mountain becomes a passing cloud.

The cloud becomes the open sky.

The temple has no walls to hold it,

No gate through which the soul must fly.

And who is sitting underneath

The cedar on that mountain high?

A monk? A thought? A breath of being?

A ripple in the endless sky?

The question rises, then dissolves,

Like mist before the morning sun.

The seeker and the path grow quiet.

The many rest within the One.

Now nothing floats, and nothing falls.

No summit stands above the sea.

The temple, mountain, sky, and monk

Are waves of one vast mystery.

Yet still the cedar holds its branches.

Still clouds drift past the temple door.

Still somewhere, bells ring through the heavens,

Though no one asks what they ring for.

The monk opens his eyes at last.

The mountain stands beneath the tree.

The mist lies sleeping in the valley.

The sky stretches toward eternity.

Nothing has changed.

And yet the world seems newly born.

He rises, folds his robe, and walks

Toward the temple through the dawn.

The island of his meditation

Has vanished, yet is never gone.

For heaven was not somewhere above him.

The temple was not far away.

The mountain had not left the earth.

The sky had never been apart.

They were the forms his stillness took,

The shapes that silence briefly wore—

And when the mind released its boundaries,

The universe opened every door.

So let the mist rise from the valley.

Let the floating temple roam.

Let the mountain touch the heavens.

For the one who rests in stillness

Carries the island home.