The Stream-enterers

"According to the story, by simply hearing these words, which to our ears may hardly seem inspiring, Sariputra gained the first stage of insight into nirvana and became a stream enterer." – Lopez, The Story of Budhism










It is not always the new trail that I find all that is remarkable.
There is that, too, new adventure upon new adventure,
some new scene upon the mind I walk with hope of the new.
Today we parked along the upper ridges of Picnic Point,
a spit of a peninsula which overlooks the other side of Mendota;
the water all around so high that the green waves crashed
inside the usual hollows of walkable trail and new trees
were under water, new waterlogged stumps, new leaves jewels.
We made it in under the curves of the Frautschi Point trail,
something of a winding lair of dark muddy trail curves,
our own footprints temporary relics to behold on our return.
Where were we? Had we every truly been here overlooking
the swollen lake as this before or was this a new creation?
I could have sworn that the last time we walked through
my mind had been nothing more than a television of serpents,
as the news and the loud mouths had gained foothold there.
I thought of the Buddha and his following sangha,
walking from village to village for forty years learning
anew the same people who they had known for centuries,
and braided fresh eyes to a trail home right where they stood.