Breakfast with Buddha

by Roland Merullo

“Time,” he said, holding up the braid to me. He indicated one end, then the other, “Maybe one thousand year.” He touched the individual stalks of grass tenderly. “Souls. Spirits. You see? You, your father, your mother, sister, wife, children, you see? Your spirit is together with their spirits like this, tight against each other. That is why you were born into this wife together.” He pulled one strand out and tossed it up into the sunlight. “Maybe one of these people, or two, not so close after this wife. But people you really love, spirits that are close to your spirit, you see? They tie around tight to you, wife after wife.” “Life,” I corrected him. “L.” He paid no attention. “You see them, you live with them, you meet them now as son or daughter, next as mother or father, next as friend, maybe sometime as enemy, you see? You go through time with them.” “A nice idea,” I said. “Comforting.” And in response I received a hard look and felt the power in his eyes, in his being. It made me think of the power in the hands of a gentle-seeming karate master,