Now

I took this picture of a Buddha on a trip to Hong Kong just before Hong Kong reverted to Chinese Rule.

a Buddha in Hong Kong

Buddhism weaves in and out of my life. It’s like a shiny bracelet that I forget I own and stumble upon it while frantically searching for my keys. Oh, I forgot I had this. And I slip it on and reconnect with specific times and places in my life. Like watching the sun rise on New Year’s Day on a beach in Bali Indonesia, where the enormity of life and my karma wash over me like waves, cleansing and pounding at the same time, and I get profoundly I am responsible for everything in my life. Or I slip that bracelet on as I pick up a fallen ginko leaf from a street in Brooklyn, reminded that all things fall, all things are temporary and flutter away and exist in this moment only. The Buddha marks this page, not as a declaration of something that I believe in, or anyone should believe in, but as a reminder, like my shiny bracelet, that life is now and you are it.