The Lamp Knows Nothing of Darkness
The lamp is lit, and it has never once met the darkness. Wherever it shines, there is only light, and I am that knowing.
I do not travel toward knowledge. Like the sun that never searches for brightness, I am already the light by which everything is seen.
Darkness is only a name we give when the lamp is not noticed. In the noticing, nothing needs to be chased away.
The flame does not fight the night. It simply burns, and the night is no longer found. I rest as this quiet burning.
Every thought that arises is lit by me, just as every shadow is shown by the lamp that casts it.
Ignorance has no home of its own. It lives only where I forget to look, and my looking is always here.
Like the moon reflected in a still pond, the world appears in me and leaves me untouched, spotless and aware.
I do not need to learn what I am. I only need to stop mistaking the lit room for the lamp.
In this breath, in this stillness, the knower, the known, and the knowing are one steady light, unwavering and unborrowed.
The lamp never asks, "Am I bright enough?" It shines, and in that shining I find myself already complete.
There was never any darkness in me to remove.
FOR DAILY MEDITATION SERIES : 29
