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

“The One That Stays” wrestles with an ancient question: How do ordinary people offer something sacred when the old stories demand the impossible?

Inspired by Buddhist teachings about sacrifice and perseverance, this song explores the tension between spectacular acts of devotion and the quiet heroism of simply continuing—of getting up, showing up, and staying present through hardship. It’s about redefining what it means to give your life to something greater: not through dramatic gestures, but through the unglamorous work of enduring for what you believe in.

The song asks: What if the body isn’t meant to be destroyed, but to stay? What if the perfect offering isn’t burning out, but burning on—day after ordinary day?

For anyone who’s ever felt too small, too broken, or too ordinary to matter: this one’s for you. The light that changes the world comes from lives that refuse to break.

Bluesy folk pop with soul. A song about resilience, faith, and the sacred ordinary.

Lyrics: 

[Verse 1–Intimate, introspective, stripped back]
They said the old saint lit himself on fire 
Twelve hundred years of light, arms ablaze 
How can I match that pyre 
With my small hands and ordinary days?

The book says we all can wake right here
In this skin, this bone, this very life
But if waking means I disappear—
Then what’s the body even for?

[Chorus–Anthemic but earthy, building intensity without losing intimacy]
But the fire is what they do to you 
And you keep walking anyway 
The perfect gift ain’t the spectacular view 
It’s the only body—the one that stays 
Yeah, the only body is the one that stays

[Verse 2–Intimate, introspective, stripped back]
The teacher said, “You misunderstand the flame” 
The body is the treasure, not the kindling 
It’s persecution that will stake your claim 
When you stand for truth while the world is dwindling

Not just any suffering counts, he said 
Only what you bear for what is true 
Not the lost accounts or the emperor dead 
But the dailiness of rising when they come for you

[Chorus–Anthemic but earthy, building intensity without losing intimacy]
‘Cause the fire is what they do to you 
And you keep walking anyway 
The perfect gift ain’t the spectacular view 
It’s the only body—the one that stays 
Yeah, the only body is the one that stays

[Bridge–Vulnerable, space opens up, instruments pull back before final chorus surge]
So I offer up this job, this grief, this bread 
This rising when I’d rather stay in bed 
This helping when I’m barely standing tall 

The mystic law transforms it all— 
Into the flame without the cost 
Of leaving nothing when you’re lost

[Verse 3–Intimate, introspective, stripped back]
The light that saves the world, I’ve learned 
Comes from a life that will not break 
From hands that give, from bridges burned 

From the heart that makes its stand for giving’s sake
In this ordinary, unspectacular land 
Where enlightenment blooms in mortal clay—

[Final Chorus–Anthemic but earthy, building intensity without losing intimacy]
Yeah, the fire is what they do to you 
And you keep walking anyway 
The perfect gift ain’t the spectacular view 
It’s the only body—the one that stays 
The only body—the one that stays 
The only body is the one that stays