Mr. Altig’s Overview of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra

The river was still once,
a whisper in the mountain’s heart,
a thought, a seed, a promise
unspoken but known.

For lifetimes, it wandered—
through stone, through soil,
through seasons of silence,
forgotten but flowing.

Then one day, the rains returned,
and the river remembered.
It surged, it sang,
it knew its path without doubt.

Where once it trickled, it now carved canyons.
Where once it meandered, it now danced.
No hesitation—only the pull of destiny,
only the rushing, the roaring, the rush.

Those who saw it wondered:
“Where did this flood come from?”
“How does it move with such force?”
But the river only smiled.

It had always been on its way.
Through a thousand lifetimes,
through a thousand lessons,
through the turning of dharma-wheels,
it had gathered its strength,
and now—now—it flowed freely to the sea.

So too, the bodhisattvas awaken.
Not in an instant, not by chance,
but by the ripening of countless steps,
by the remembering of a path long walked.

And when the flood of knowing comes,
when the acceleration sweeps them forward,
they do not resist.

They become the river
and move with the Dharma’s tide.