Gautama sits in his golden cloister,
mouth shut like a tight, complacent oyster,
silent, his shiny pearls clamped in himself
like a greedy man hoarding his vast wealth.
But what does the Buddha know, anyway?
He was nigh-thirty on that fateful day
when he rode forth into his father’s realm
on a grand chariot, a crown his helm.
He saw suffering thitherto denied
unto him while he long sheltered inside
amidst the opulence of his palace,
his life a draught from the golden chalice.
The bitter dregs were apparent, at last,
though he was still blinded by his high caste.
He saw an old man, a sick man, the dead,
and an ascetic, and though highborn-bred
he still worried about himself, of course,
(not others), and he wondered if the source
for removing such pains was self-denial.
So he sat under a tree for a while,
forty-nine days, they claim, though I do doubt
he sat that long, for he was bound to spout
about how great he was, how he alone
would discover Moksha, all on his own,
and he had to expel his piss and poo
so his bowels could be enlightened, too.
Be that as it may, his lotus soon gaped
and he saw Nirvana when he escaped
from the world’s pains, yet returning to preach
to any poor peasant within his reach,
saying, “You, too, can escape rebirth’s wheel
if you would only submit, bow, and kneel
and deny yourself less than what you now own,
which is already little, and on loan,
but as a prince I can tell you the worth
of such possessions on this fickle earth.
Life is suffering! The world is a trap!
Deny yourself—drink the bodhi tree’s sap!”
Most people shrugged, or only rolled their eyes,
and continued their work, already wise
to the ways of the world, to the hard truths
the prince could not learn from beneath the roofs
of his palace, his birthright, his clam shell,
that privileged heaven devoid of hell.
And then he began to raise his temples,
spreading his message like pox-born pimples,
no doubt using his princely position
to thwart other ascetics, his mission
privileged by connections to the courts
throughout the land, favors, toady cohorts,
his franchise spreading like a fast-food chain
or death-cult concerned with its earthly reign.
But he let go of some earthly trifles,
like his wife and child, that which oft stifles
a cult leader when he wants a fresh start,
free from the past—pure in his holy heart.
But Gautama could not shake his wife loose,
for earthly bonds are stronger than the noose
and will follow a man into his grave,
yet he was, if anything, a shrewd knave,
and said that women could not be allowed,
and, thus, his wife was lost among the crowd.
But after many complaints from his aunt,
Siddhartha did, eventually, recant,
saying, “Women can be nuns, I suppose,
but you are lesser than monks, because bros
come before hoes, and so you must obey
the lowliest monk, and do what they say.”
Then Gautama’s cousin rose against him,
saying Gaut was corrupt, given to whim,
and partook of meat, despite Buddhist laws
stating beasts could not be slain just because
monks and nuns hankered for pork or for fowl,
but only incidentally, somehow.
(What a roundabout loophole to ensure
you could eat sentient life and remain pure!)
But this would be your undoing, buddha,
not unlike Nagas and the Garuda
as the bird stamps claws downward to pin them
as fangs bite upward to sting with venom.
For you, too, hankered for non-vegan food
and though you forbid harm to beasts, your mood
was for pork, which was brought to you forthwith—
you ate it without so much as a sniff
and thereafter fell quite ill, your belly
sloshing and tossing, your bowels smelly,
taken to the grave by a bit of pig,
which is ironic for someone so big
in the world’s pantheon of myths and gods,
your shadow looming large, against the odds,
since you were not meant to be a being
at all, nor ego, nor soul, but fleeing
matter, space, and time, freed from such rebirth
that continues to populate the earth.

But speak, buddha, and let us hear the clink
of the pearls, of what you happen to think
is best for us peasants beneath your throne—
tell us what you think, what you alone
discovered after leaving your shelter
and saw, at long last, the helter-skelter
of Life, of the world at large, and its woes;
tell us what it is, naif prince, you suppose
is the source of our suffering, tell us
what we already know, be not jealous
of your unique viewpoint, your perspective
on Life, the existential elective.
I should like to hear the clink of your pearls
when you speak and your lacquered tongue unfurls.