The Sutra of the Passing Cloud

Thus did the Master speak to the gathered monks beneath the mountain’s shadow, as a lenticular cloud hovered, still and perfect, above the peak.

The young monk asked,

“Master, I have studied the sutras,

I have counted the beads,

I have sat through the turning of many seasons,

and yet my mind clings to the past,

and reaches for the future.

How may I awaken?”

The Master raised his staff and pointed to the sky.

“Behold the lenticular cloud.

It does not drift,

nor does it remain.

It appears,

yet it is already vanishing.

It vanishes,

yet it never truly departs.”

The monks looked and saw

the great lens of vapor,

poised like a silent ship

in an ocean of blue.

“Tell me,” the Master continued,

“is this cloud of the past?

Or is it of the future?”

One monk said, “It must be of the present, Master.”

The Master shook his head gently.

“Present? And what is this present?

By the time you name it,

it is already gone.”

Another monk spoke,

“Then there is nothing at all,

neither past, nor future, nor present.”

The Master laughed like a mountain stream.

“Nothing? Yet here we sit.

The sparrow calls.

The tea steams.

The lenticular cloud lingers.”

“Know this:

There never is, or was, or will be

anything except this.”

“The past is but a memory,

the future a dream.

Even the present

is only the flash of a lenticular cloud—

seen, yet already changing,

named, yet already gone.”

“Do not chase the cloud.

Do not bind it with your thoughts.

Let it form,

let it dissolve.

This is the way of all things.”

And as the monks gazed in silence,

the lenticular cloud slowly unraveled,

its perfect shape melting into the endless sky.

And in that melting,

their questions, too, faded away.