[ Dhamma Talk ]

"When I, Beggar's, was yet a Bodhisattva,
Not yet fully awakened,
The reflection came to me:
'Being transient themselves, beings pursue the transient;
because of that they do not escape their transience.
How about if I, being transient, pursued the non-transient?'
And this was the path I chose."

Gotama, The Buddha (paraphrase)

A Jay of Extraordinary Beauty

The Blue-Jays^[1] have been going at it for days now. All day long back and forth half a dozen of them awk! awk! awk! At first I thought I remembered that this is what they do when a cat gets one of their number, but that wasn't it this time. Finally My Father, son of the son of My Father, the Jay that ate from my hand and sat on my hat, told me the scoop: A Female Jay of extraordinary beauty had been born into this family of Jays, and she has come of age and is being courted like none before her in memory.

I look. I must honestly say I cannot distinguish her from any of the other Jays. In fact, the only way I recognize My Father is by the way he comes up to me and talks and gives me that look that says: "Now where, I wonder, is that cashew I know he is hiding?" and by the way he holds up one leg any time he rests ... his father's father, My Father, lost one leg to a cat.

My Father, the J that ate from my hand and sat on my hat

Beauty Queens of Yesteryear

Entrants in a Beauty Pageant in my Grandfather's day.

Beauties of Yesteryear

^[1] PS: This J had an unfortunately short lifespan due to having been had for dinner by Mara's Daughters.