– A Lesson –
A New Parable of the Buddha

Three mornings in a row, the Buddha sat
and sipped his tea beneath the banyan tree.
He waited for the coming of the thought
that would define this way, this life. What’s more,
his expectation was that he would know
not just the answers but the questions that
had baffled men for centuries. You see
he wasn’t born with wisdom. He was not.

But nothing came and though his mind, a store
of eagerness, cried out, he’d naught to show.
Just then a child sat by him with a toy,
Though the child smiled wide, the toy was broken.

He sat it in the sage’s lap and said,
“The only questions are the words unspoken.”