Photo by Ryoma Onita
Dukkha
First Noble Truth of Buddhism
Maria Berardi
Not suffering. Not exactly.
It is your newborn is a wonder
and everything is sharp and blurry at the same time.
It is your adorable funny lively preschooler is eating your brain.
It is the interest and amusement and curiosity of school-age kids
and being too engulfed in logistics to enjoy this.
It is so much driving, too much driving, tedious, fractious,
and the conversations you can only have with your children
when you are both staring straight ahead.
It is the pride and desolation as they grow into their own lives that are not yours.
It is the deepest satisfaction in how you have carried through
and deep pain that you won’t be there for the whole of their lives,
and the bottomless grief, if you had been;
and a funny sadness that they were not there, when you were young.
Mostly it is a vast love wrapped
in vast fear wrapped in vast love
so vast so wrapped it has become you, yourself,
though none of this is really about you at all.
First Noble Truth of Buddhism
Maria Berardi
Not suffering. Not exactly.
It is your newborn is a wonder
and everything is sharp and blurry at the same time.
It is your adorable funny lively preschooler is eating your brain.
It is the interest and amusement and curiosity of school-age kids
and being too engulfed in logistics to enjoy this.
It is so much driving, too much driving, tedious, fractious,
and the conversations you can only have with your children
when you are both staring straight ahead.
It is the pride and desolation as they grow into their own lives that are not yours.
It is the deepest satisfaction in how you have carried through
and deep pain that you won’t be there for the whole of their lives,
and the bottomless grief, if you had been;
and a funny sadness that they were not there, when you were young.
Mostly it is a vast love wrapped
in vast fear wrapped in vast love
so vast so wrapped it has become you, yourself,
though none of this is really about you at all.