Sitting with Mary

by Scott Speck

	What if a Buddhist monk had visions of the Virgin Mary?  Would he admit
to it?  Would he cultivate this vision within himself as a discovered truth?
Would it occupy his thoughts to obsession, or would he dismiss it as a distraction
and return to the outbreath?
	I see him now, sitting beneath a tree, a hundred branches of rustling
leaves.  A bell sounds off in the distance.  If he were communing with Mary right
now, would he stay sitting or leave to attend the summons?  What language would
she speak?  Would he find her attractive?  Would she sit down beside him and
contemplate the world through her Father's eyes, or her Son's?
        I know, these are not proper questions, but I am curious.  If he were
a Buddha, I know what he would do.  He would gaze lovingly at her and clear
leaves from the ground beside himself.  An invitation to sit.  Well, that's
what I did.  And I refrained from asking questions.  I would have tried to
answer her questions, but she was silent.  She knows so much already, and there
is nothing I could teach her.  A single glance from her convicted me.  I am a
changed man today because of it.
	A changed man, transformed through a stare that impaled my soul a hundred
times in a single heartbeat.  Her glance was sweeping by, gathering the Essence
of things, everything her gaze touched, when our eyes met.  She was kind and
looked away, yet there was a moment of convergence, and I glimpsed a paradox.
It was not the Heart of Infinite Sadness, nor the Heart of Joy.  Rather, it was
both, and neither, at once.  And not only that, but a power, seething with such
brilliance that I could not behold it fully and live.  That is when I came to
understand the meaning of the term "Vessel of Holiness".  Not a container,
holding a bounded, volume of goodness within.  Instead, a portal, a state of
being created through a connectedness with All Things, All Minds.
	I sit now, as I have before, beneath the tree, a place always clear of
leaves beside me.  If she returns, I will invite her to sit with me again.
Perhaps, the next time we meet, I will be joyful and not afraid.