My Way: The Way of the White Clouds

Description

Just before Buddha died somebody asked him: When a buddha dies where does he go? Does
he survive or simply disappear into nothingness? This is not a new question, it is one of the
oldest, many times repeated and asked. Buddha is reported to have said: Just like a white cloud
disappearing….
This very morning there were white clouds in the sky. Now they are there no more. Where have they
gone? From where do they come? How do they evolve, and how do they dissolve again? A white
cloud is a mystery, the coming, the going, the very being of it. That’s the first reason why I call my
way The Way of the White Clouds.
But there are many reasons, and it is good to ponder, to meditate upon them. A white cloud exists
without any roots. It is an unrooted phenomenon, grounded nowhere or grounded in the nowhere.
But still it exists. The whole of existence is like a white cloud: without any roots, without any causality,
without any ultimate cause, it exists. It exists as a mystery.
A white cloud really has no way of its own. It drifts. It has nowhere to reach, no destination, no
destiny to be fulfilled, no end. You cannot frustrate a white cloud because wherever it reaches is the
goal.