Joseph Fasano – Instructions for Having a Soul

In Mahayana Buddhism, the bodhisattva ideal describes one who seeks awakening for the sake of all beings and vows to continue returning within the cycle of birth and death until all sentient beings are free from suffering. As Śāntideva wrote in the 8th-century Bodhicaryāvatāra(“Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life”), the bodhisattva’s vow includes these lines: “For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too remain to dispel the misery of the world.” Those drawn to the bodhisattva ideal face a seeming paradox, though: It is not a binary of self-sacrifice over all else, for in that same text, Śāntideva wrote, “One should carefully guard oneself, just as one would protect a wound.” 

We encounter a similarly paradoxical line in the close of Joseph Fasano’s poem, “Instructions for Having a Soul,” for after cataloging several actions to take for the benefit of others, he concludes with the instruction to “Make your life the first life that you save.”  Fasano’s poem reminds us with great honesty that, should we seek to eschew surrendering to a life like Henry David Thoreau described in Walden as one of “…quiet desperation,” we will indeed need to care for our inner well-being. According to Fasano, this care is multi-dimensional, deeply humane, and reverential. And, it is only by nourishing ourselves in these ways that we will be of benefit to life and living beings.

---

Instructions For Having a Soul

Take it out in the rain sometimes. 
It has vast, invisible wings that gather dirt 
and need rinsing. 
When it tries to kill you 
that is because you’ve forgotten 
to let it look into someone’s eyes 
for longer than a minute. 
It needs that the way a bee needs nectar 
in the early morning dew. 
Every so often, take it on a journey. 
Let it read long, hard books 
and let it stare into the depths of the sea. 
Yes, you can give it chips and whiskey 
but from time to time let it kneel 
in a place that is holy 
like the simple cathedral of the willows. 
All it wants is to live, to keep becoming. 
Nourish it, and it puts down roots, it opens. 
But starve it, and the mind, the flesh is empty; 
the world breaks down; symphonies go unwritten; 
the rockets fall; the children die 
in flames. 
Listen. It is not too late to wake it. 
Say the names of the wild, the forgotten things: 
bluebird, red wolf, robin; violet, child, clover.
You cannot save the world but you can open 
the window for the trapped wren in the cellar. 
Read a book to a blind man, to your father. 
Tell a child you do believe her anger. 
Make your life the first life that you save.  

---