Little Buddha

In which another boring morning on the train delivers a mystical experience.

Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash

It was another morning…
Climbed onto the EL to drag me
into another day…
I squish myself among my fellow 
Chicagoans (avoiding as much
eye contact as possible). 

Morning masks firmly glued on faces:
various shapes of poverty, frustration,
anger, boredom: the moldy vegetables 
of the 21st Century.  After a brief
survey of this metropolitan theater,
my eyes landed on an Hispanic 
baby boy in his stroller, along
with his tired young mom.

It was a theme that repeats
itself through the centuries:
Mother & Child, Isis & Horus, 
Mary & Jesus, though this time, 
in the ripening fruits of the 
21st Century, it was Maria & Jesus.  
I looked at this baby, oblivious 
to the dreary tableau of the
morning commute, and 
he looked back at me.
I waved at him, and to my
surprise he waved back at me!  
I couldn’t get over how adorable 
he was!  It was almost as if
invisible strings were
being woven between us.

And when I smiled at him, 
his eyes grew like M&Ms;
face beaming with a smile that
outshone the train’s dull 
numbing fluorescent light,
his gestures matched mine
and before I knew it,
I wasn’t looking at just a baby, 
but gazing into the eyes 
of Buddha himself, where 
deep rivers of compassion 
flowed into a symphony of
unconditional love which sang:

“You are a marvelous being,
embraced and enveloped in a 
multi-colored vortex of love
in dimensions far beyond
your comprehension…”

And then he was the
little baby I used to be,
and the baby was within me…
this morning spell growing more 
intense, moments melting 
into an Eternal Now!

I locked into 
the tractor beam 
of the Little Buddha’s love;
and then 
his little arm raised 
a potato chip to his mouth…
 
CRUNCH!

and the spell was broken…

His mom guided the stroller 
to the double doors as the 
train pulled up to a stop. 
She pushed him out 
gently pressed by 
a flow of other passengers
going through their
daily motions, 
oblivious to what 
happened between 
this baby and me.

Though I’ll never see 
the Little Buddha again,
upon my heart he left
a trace of the Love that
connects the human race…