Walking the dusty paths, the same strides taken by pilgrims from all Buddhist faiths, the countriesas diverse as the skin tones, as scattered as the tongues, as varied as the hues of the clothes that drape; Cambodians and Thais in bright orange temple robes; Sri Lankans and Vietnamese in the deep browns of the monsoon season earth; Tibetans in maroon and crimson.
Millenia ago, on these same dusty paths, the same ancient rice paddies dotting the fading horizon, the same crickets greeting the flaming orange horizon, the same primal screams of roving bands of jackals under the starry sky, walked the Buddha himself, a simple man, a simple message.
The chanting of the Korean monks reverberated off the cavernous confines of the unfinished, concrete gray temple; the sound waves collided with my silent mind and stirred my soul.
I smiled deeply and bowed to the moment. What an astonishing adventure this has been, all these years.
“The Tibetans liken the mind to a great clear sky, a cloudless sky. All the phenomena of the mind and body are happenings in this clear sky. They are not the sky itself. The sky is clear and unaffected by what is happening. The clouds come and go, the winds come and go, the rain and sunlight all come and go, but the sky remains clear. Make the mind like a big clear sky and let everything arise and vanish on its own.”
-Joseph Goldstein
