Everything matters. What is transcendent is the mystery
of life and its essence. It is witnessing all but being
conditioned by none. It is the higher truth of the universe—
a sacred truth. In the true practice of presence:
you are not your body, but life itself. In the unconditioned
awareness I briefly slipped into today, my experience
of it was enormously and profoundly loving and moving.
It was pure energetic presence. This is who we are.
Enlightenment is not being conditioned by anything.
It’s really feeling the love of God. Looking into
the light in your eyes brought me into you, which
then brought me into my own heart. I experienced
life itself in my heart, the power of God,
the energy of the universe . . . and I know that’s what I am.
Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as co-winner in the 2011 Crab Orchard Series; and A Bird Who Seems to Know Me: Poems Regarding Birds & Nature, winner of the 2018 Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Prize. His poems appear in Commonweal, Rattle, and Transference.
