chicks breaking
through the shell-
flower festival
Today is Hanamatsuri or Flower festival. It is also the time we celebrate the birth of the Buddha. Just as a chick breaks through its shell to be born we too must break through our ego to be born a compassionate being. May today be your birth too.
popping up-
shoots of green
welcome the dawn
As a walked this morning I noticed little shoots starting to push up through the flower beds. Nice to see Spring arriving.
flowers closing
with the western sun-
stone Buddha
parade of monks
in their saffron robes-
spring tulips
sermon in
the rocks-
happy cricket
bluejay flies
from nest to nest-
school-yard bully
on a foggy evening
they gossip-
whip-poor-will
tilling the
spring soil-
Buddha weeps
So I have heard that the Buddha, when he was a little boy named Siddhartha, was watching the fields being plowed. He saw how the birds went behind the plow eating worms that had been uncovered. Even before becoming the Buddha he recognized the cycle of life and the suffering it caused. It is said he sat in the shade of a tree and spontaneously meditated. Reaching the first stage of enlightenment.
atoms, quarks,
boson… Buddha
holds forth a flower
Inspired by a J. W. Hackett haiku and today’s announcement of the validation of CERN’s Boson particle discovery.
slowly my
computer reboots-
digital zen
