Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

My ears are burning; is it the sounds that are on fire or the organ that consumes them? My eyes are on fire; is it the landscape that burns or the organ that consumes them? My skin is on fire; is it the warmth of the sun?My nose is on fire; is it the smell that stings or the placid organ that can't stand spice? My tongue is burning; the fire of spice is part chill and part tastebud. 

But deep within the breath is burning; my breathing is burning. And that which I watch in meditation, part voluntary and part involuntary, burns in the smoky air. And alone in universal greed and desire, I breathe.

For it is the source of suffering this desire - and reveals itself to me as burning breath. I take my shoes off, for I am in sacred space.
It speaks to me that I must go into the wilderness: deaf, dumb, blind, and barefoot.

For forty more years I must travel to a promised land that I won't be alive to see. For forty years I will reside in the promised land without sense and desire, but only faith.