<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">The Transfer of Allegiances</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><i style="font-size: 17px;" class="">a bodhisattva poem</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We’ve become like hungry ghosts</div><div class="">cowering inside this dark age.</div><div class="">May all the fortresses</div><div class="">that we’ve built</div><div class="">finally fall away.</div><div class="">Look!</div><div class="">There!</div><div class="">The Lords of Materialism</div><div class="">are busily working out their plan;</div><div class="">they spout their speeches of division</div><div class="">to make us beholden to fear again.</div><div class="">They make us drunk</div><div class="">as if on a drug</div><div class="">and say: “Ignore what is happening.</div><div class="">Go back to being numb!”</div><div class="">The men of my country</div><div class="">seem so afraid</div><div class="">of everything these days –</div><div class="">their fellow man,</div><div class="">and even women.</div><div class="">It’s like they’ve all become crazed!</div><div class="">But at every direction,</div><div class="">and in every realm,</div><div class="">the Vajra Bodies are spinning again.</div><div class="">Spinning</div><div class="">and spinning</div><div class="">spinning awake inside our cells.</div><div class="">We have what we need</div><div class="">to work with this mind</div><div class="">and transform any living hells.</div><div class="">When the branches and vines of ego</div><div class="">are mindfully and thoroughly pruned,</div><div class="">the Great Reality of Being appears</div><div class="">to which we become attuned.</div><div class="">And the Great Shining Flower that you are</div><div class="">is no longer choked</div><div class="">and finally blooms.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Frank Owen</div></body></html>