Squirrel

“[written 2,600 years ago]

Another Sama

After twenty-five years on the Path,
I'd experienced almost everything--
except peace.

When I was young,
my mother told me
that I would find true happiness
only in marriage.

Remembering her words all those years
later,
something in me began to tremble.

I gave myself to the trembling--
and it showed me
all the pain
this little heart
had ever known.

And how countless lives of searching
had brought me
at last
to the present moment,
which I happily married.

Can you imagine?

We've been living together
ever since,
without
a single
argument.”
― Matty Weingast, The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns