Kimonos in the Closet

Waking Up as a Buddhist

13 Waking Up as a Buddhist Sometimes you may wake up and find you’ve become a Buddhist. You realize it is illogical because you’ve never taken lessons in Buddhism or had a Buddhist sprinkle water on your head or feed you flower petals or do whatever a Buddhist does to become a Buddhist. But there you are in the morning light, a disciple of Buddha. You don’t even brush aside the fly that lands on your nose for fear of fracturing its spindly legs. You move an earthworm out of your path in the garden as you gather your squash. Even that pocket in your mind where you store your darkest thoughts is now awash in light. You look in the mirror and are surprised your head is not shaven and you’re not clad in orange robes. All morning your life is colored with bliss, but by noon some of your Buddhism has worn off after you get cut off in traffic and your boss calls you a dimwit in front of your secretary. At dusk you’re only a quarter the Buddhist you were at dawn. In your dreams you take a vacation from your new religion and become a cabaret dancer. An aardvark hunter. A bus driver in a city of the dead. But in your final dream a deer comes and licks your face and you’re a Buddhist again, your heart so full of compassion you feel like calling up all your enemies and thanking them for being alive. ...