On Silence and Painted Cows

So there is an incessant dichotomy that plays out in my existence here. On one hand there is silence, and on the other hand there are painted cows. Let me explain.

Silence means incense. Zen fills up all the empty spaces created by silence, so that being nothing, silence is a flickering candle and thus everything. Silence is the peace of a bell ringing, because sometimes bells are vacuums that remind you of the one true sound in the universe. Meditation can't help but be silent, even if your mind is screaming. The black robes we wear for zazen swoosh silently like bat wings. We chant the Heart Sutra to the beat of a drum in remembrance of what cannot be said.

Painted cows mean fireworks. The cows are painted for Diwali with polka-dots--yellow, orange, blue, red, and green. The painted cows are part of an unending festival mosaic, where existence is expounded in a sacred Hindu dance party. When they sleep, painted cows dream of explosions. In the liquid eyes of these bovine masterpieces, there is a pantheon of bright lights and cheesy techno songs stuck on repeat. Painted cows don't care if the sun goes down, and they always sing.

So this is the dichotomy. However, I have learned from Zen that dichotomies are bullshit. Ergo, silence and painted cows are two sides of the same coin. This, mind you, is a ridiculous coin--it is Hindu, it is Buddhist, and I always see it spinning.