One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension. I saw that it was not really dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil in order to appear on the tree the following spring in another form. I smiled at the leaf and said, "You are pretending." Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including that leaf. The Buddha said, "When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body exists. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body does not exist." The day of our "death" is a day of our continuation in many other forms.
~ from LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST by Thich Nhat Hanh
I sit and stare
Into the where
Of within me
At the world of words and sounds and sights,
Peoples and places and empty spaces,
And under it all
A small oasis of Silence
Where time ceases to be
And I am part of eternity.
