Lightning Bolt Buddha

Buddha has never been anything but a lightning bolt over Bartlesville, Oklahoma, here and gone in an instant. A lightning bolt is Buddha. Buddha has never been anything but a stream of snowmelt cascading through misty cedars into the Nooksak Valley. A mountain brook is Buddha. Buddha has never been anything but wind sighing through a rook's nest above the lepers' cemetery at Madalene Hospital in Chichester. Cemetery wind is Buddha. Buddha has never been anything but a pebble in the path to the Orphanage of the Sisters of Mercy in Brooklyn. A pebble on your path is Buddha. Where were you going? Buddha has never been anything but the infinitesimal pause between exhalation and inhalation, a gift offered to a gift. Your breath is Buddha. Observe. See if the snow chooses whether to fall on a pine bough or a camellia blossom. Be choiceless. Choicelessness is Buddha.

Ink painting: "Five Crows in a Snowy Tree,' Kono Bairei, Minneapolis Institute of Art