eight minutes

Eight minutes of writing. An eternity. Eight stars of a nameless constellation burning themselves out. The eight songs that a mockingbird can sing. Eight blossoms on the ends of eight small stems that have arisen in the eight days of spring. The eight lords of light, who praise the eight lords of darkness, who praise the eight lords of twilight, who praise the eight lords of light. The eight pictures of my black and white childhood. Eight clear rivers that leap from eight mountains to form eight sacred, calm lakes that harbor thought and consciousness. Eight moments of doubt. Eight moments of certainty. And between them the eight moments of transition, the eight connections to eight different realities, the alternate buddhas I might have been, might be, might become, might never see. Eight simple breaths drawn in and exhaled eight times. Eight types of noise surrounded by the eight types of silence, which finally engulfs all eight forms of being and not being.

This number is arbitrary, but yet it feels true in all things and it displays impermanence. The sum of all earthly numbers, reduced at last to the single, wavering note of a bell, vibrating with the harmony of a great breathing into all the selves and all the not selves a universe can hold.

Mike Pfeiffer, A Special Edition of Dharma Life.
Photograph by Eddie Horgan.