The Gate of Universal Light

by Muso Soseki

English version by W. S. Merwin
Original Language Japanese

The great light of compassion
     illuminates this world
          in every part
As a boy
     Sudhana stood
          before the gates
When your eyelids
     have fallen across
          the whole of the empty world
the gate will open
     at the snap of a finger
          as it did then to let him pass

-- from East Window: Poems from Asia, Translated by W. S. Merwin

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