the one, not the other

the power of what we think

“Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.”

so says the Dhammapada, quoting the Buddha,

whatever is, isn’t, unless we see that it is so,

at the most basic levels of reality,

at the deepest,

observation itself precipitates reality

from possibility into substance,

Heisenberg shouted of uncertainty

and of how we can only know 

location of an electron, 

or its speed--

never both,

Schrodinger’s cat is dead and alive until we observe:

the dice land,

and it is the one, 

and not the other,

now today I hear

that if we feel the world as positive and fulfilling,

it can be so, it is so,

and, if we expect the tragic,

our scenes are written to make it so,

what we expect the world to be for us

can often, somehow, be the world that is for us.

by Henry H. Walker

January 9, ’13