Thats What A Buddhas Like

(Rinpoche in Sarnath, 1987) That’s What A Buddha’s Like It’s hard to know where to start when talking about the ineffable. Maybe starting at the end is best. It’s taken me a lifetime to appreciate the little things, the simple, unadorned, and unpretentious that sometimes peek out from under the fancy robes of influence and prestige. Years ago my Lama visited my home on short notice. He stopped by with his girlfriend at the time when my mom, wife and daughter were there, and we spent a couple of hours over tea and cookies catching up on many years of news. When he eventually drove away my daughter, maybe seven or eight at the time, turned to me and said, “So that’s what a Buddha’s like.” For over forty years I’ve known this man, watched him up close, in formal and casual setting, at retreats and teachings, on the road and in his home, and what I’ve noticed is something hard to describe. It’s a quality so obvious and yet elusive, simply put; a sense of being in the moment, without contrivance. Being without contrivance is the elusive part, because it is so rare, and yet so ordinary. I’ve been around a fair number of Lamas who are considered great, and who invariably live up to their role, with a presence that instills awe and reverence with a dignity that is easy to see as natural until you see through it to its cultivated core. One of the challenges of approaching the ineffable is the oblique strategies the mind must take. If I had this remarkable friend before me now all I’d have to do is gently bow or touch my forehead or cheek to his for an instant to express this love and respect and an unfathomable appreciation for his uncontrived ways. But being uncontrived and without artifice just means being perfectly in the moment which in effect means being out of time. And being out of time means this love and respect is something we share here and now always and forever. Instead of such a simple and direct acknowledgment I’m left using words to circle around what can only be known from within. It’s been over twenty years now since my daughter turned to me in our driveway acknowledging that she recognized in you what had caught my eye and heart twenty years before what is beyond concept or word an elusive something, most obvious in what it isn’t, an innocence expressed directly in a life lived without pretense without effort without worry in the service of a joy that even a child can recognize as the spirit of play. (1/6/24)