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Music comes and goes. I listen to my favorite bands and performers in the car on the way to work, and when the song is over the sound stops, fades away. Sound does not cling to anything in hopes of persevering.

What if we were like sound: here now and then gone, no trace? In this way, sound appears and disappears like birds in the sky: no trace. (Of course, we can find traces of birds on the sidewalk, on the car roof and, on not-so-rare occasions, on our shoulder or head but still these wash away.)

Why does the ego model itself after stone and not sound? It wants to live forever, to be immortal and indestructible, and so we suffer because human existence is, and always will be, impermanent. I will endeavor to redirect my ego to the Way of Sound and see what new dialogue occurs between sound and death.

his flute
and the wind in the pines
joining silence