I’m becoming aware of preferences: this little Buddha is special, this little Buddha is not. Buddha15 is a teeny little one done on an envelope using my calligraphy brush pen. Neat device, it’s a brush that uses an ink cartridge and puts out wickedly controlled lines. I decided the kanji, like my practice at the moment, needed to be be turned on its head and the lines allowed to metamorph into representations of the straight lines. After all, straight lines just don’t fit with the sense impression of being Buddha.
And Buddha15 emerged. A contemplating practitioner under a roof with two cucumbers for company. Make of it what you will.
Being Buddha. Sometimes easier if you are a cucumber than a practitioner. The challenge for me is always in keeping the integrity of the lines that allow the character to be recognized for what it is while letting the lines flow to show that although it is, it also isn’t. And that’s exactly who we are, isn’t it? Made up of the formal lines that define all Buddhas, yet manifesting in our unique ways.
So look closely. Can you see Buddha in buddha15, buddha15 in me, me in you, you in all that is?
Thank you for practicing,
Genju
108zenbooks 
Hmm….looks like an ox lost in the woods to me.
Isn’t that an ox tail hanging off the bottom? Can it get through the window?
Saving it for soup… 😀
Good idea! No need to throw it out the window when it could feed 10,000 people!
Before I read Barry’s comment I was seeing the Buddha.
Now I can only see the ox!
It looks just like the one from the manger in Bethlehem!
Small world, eh?
and you were doing so well…. 🙂
Now that you mention it tho’ it looks like a Madonna and Child, doesn’t it? 😮
Dang! ya did it to me again!
It sure does look like a Madonna and Child.
But now I see a goose swimming to the left about to go under a bridge. So there!
What Buddha? What ox? What Madonna? What kanji?
Oops! I haven’t learned ’emoticons’. I should have put a smiley face after the ‘So there!’ – it was said in jest but on the raw page it doesn’t look good.
But it is a goose 🙂
Wow! I just put a : and a ) and up comes a real smiley face just like majic! What’ll they think of next 🙂
http://en.support.wordpress.com/smilies/
you have to turn on the emoticon function from your dashboard though… I tried to put in smilies on your blog and it didn’t work… 😦
Thanks, I wondered if what you typed would translate into little faces so I went and found out how to turn on emoticons. Really neat! Thanks for nudging me to learn something new – you have that habit!
😆 you are both incorrigible! Bruce gets the prize for transcending the Ox while Barry returns to the marketplace to sell Ox-tales!
I normally lurk, but thought that I’d post because the cucumbers delighted me. They reminded me of the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra:
“We pay homage to the universal consciousness which nourishes all beings
May we be liberated from the death of ignorance through knowledge of our immortal essence
Just as the cucumber falls from the bondage of the vine”
Easier to be a cucumber indeed!
Thank you for un-lurking, Emma! That is a terrific mantra. It evokes so many images of all the natural phenomena that simply, un-begrudgingly “fall from the bondage of the vine.”
Deep bows & heartfelt gratitude for your offering,
Genju