A Spring Day
On the eighth day of a spring month, in a time called the white year,
I tried to hold my mind and make it
still—
my mind that wanders aimlessly.
Repeatedly I tried, ever more dejectedly.
I wished to merge my mind
in the sky of unstained space;
I wished to float my body
lightly, in dancing clouds.
Like a breeze in the open air,
my mind yearns to drift, ill at ease
in rest.
Yet now, before the sun turns red
and sets,
may I leave this place, this gaping
state—
a field of lotus groves, spacious,
blissful,
a mind at ease and joyful.
- Kelsang Gyatso, seventh Dalai Lama
(Translated by Thupten Jinpa and Jas’ Elsner)