Sunday Meditation #6: Buddha In The Grass

Mowing the grass on a weeknight, about two weeks ago and feeling astonished to find some enlightenment amongst the noise and the mulch.  But there it was, Buddha smiling at me in the fading green of the clippings.  This sort of thing seems to occur often these days, for reasons unknown to me.  Am I ready for enlightenment, or am I simply noticing more by choice?  Enlightenment.  Perhaps that is incorrect.  Maybe calm clarity is the better phrase.  Settlement. Zen? Satori?

If it is satori, it is a quiet one.  No flashes of light, no sudden awakening from deep sleep to cry and shout "Of course!".  No, this occurrence was much more modest.  I was cutting grass, that was all, making my way around the yard in the cooling light of the evening.  It was when I was almost done in the back yard that this feeling of serenity descended upon me.  Peace.  A bliss that extended into my muscles and belly.  Bearing down on a particularly high patch of grass, I smiled for no reason other than the calm within.  I saw the Buddha.

I finished cutting the grass, bemused and without bursting the bubble of peace.  I was in a groove.  I wanted to stay there.  This gave me pause to ponder it the rest of the night.  I asked myself why I hadn't seen God, or Jesus Christ.  After all, I was raised in the Christian tradition, so the face of the Almighty would have been more expected.  And there was no clear picture of Buddha.  More like a fleeting image that came into being just long enough for the pattern recognition centers of my brain to find something known, into which it could fit the thing it saw.

But he did smile.

I wondered about that up until I went to sleep that night.  I decided that it did not matter who or what I think I saw.  What mattered is that for a few wonderful minutes, on an ordinary summer evening, I was at peace.  I had that which I wished.  Simple problems, measurable results, and the joy of being present, there and then.