Laughing Buddah

LAUGHING BUDDAH

Strolling through the market streets,
Hotei goes,
linen sack on back.

Stirring dust
with his bare feet
Hotei's calmly steeping onward,
bearing his fat belly.

With a smile he sees day-bringing dawn,
with a smile he views departing dusk.
Where does he take his nightly rest?
He has no home but all the world.

Above the world
or of the world?
Now does he care to tell?

If any ask of him a teaching
he answers merely:
"Give me a penny!"

In the sack he bears his gifts,
candy, fruit, and doughnuts.
These he hands out to street children,
to rings of eager faces.

And thereupon he holds
his kindergarten in the careless street.

One simple day
another master corners him.

"What is
enlightenment? What is
its actual significance?
With firm politeness
the question is pursued.

Yet Hotei speaks but by a smile,
the answer shrugs,
the heavy load's slipped from
his shoulder's hold.

And in a sparkle of silence
the laughing Buddah drops
his sack down on the dusty ground.

Further query comes:
" Then what is
enlightenment's reality?"

The heavy load is hoisted back.

Smiling silence
Hotei takes
his sack back on his willing shoulder
and goes at once
upon the way. . .