Shaka Muni

More about Shaka Muni

The card is numbered 0, which is a strange number for a beginning. Not one, not even half of something. Just 0—a quiet opening, like the pause before music starts.

In the picture a man stands beneath a wide banyan tree. The aerial roots hang down like old telephone wires connecting the sky to the ground. If you listen carefully you might imagine messages traveling along them, though nobody quite knows who is sending them.

The man wears a saffron robe that moves slightly in the breeze coming off the ocean. His sandals rest on the dusty earth. Behind the tree, beyond the leaves and the tangled roots, there is a glimpse of water and distant mountains. It might be Maui, or it might be somewhere else entirely. Tarot cards are vague about geography.

Both of his hands form the shaka sign—thumb and little finger extended, the other fingers folded. In Hawaii it means hang loose. Relax. Everything is okay. Or maybe everything isn’t okay, but worrying about it won’t change the tide.

The name at the bottom of the card reads Shakyamuni—the sage of the Śākya clan, the historical Gautama Buddha. But the expression on the man’s face suggests he might also be someone who simply wandered under the wrong tree at the right moment.

The banyan above him—something like Ficus prolixa—does what banyan trees do. It spreads. Roots descend from branches and become trunks of their own. Slowly, without hurry, one tree becomes many. Or many become one tree. Botanists argue about this, but the tree itself never bothers to explain.

Tarot readers say the 0 card represents the beginning of a journey. But the man beneath the banyan does not look like he is about to leave. He looks like someone who has already walked a very long distance and finally discovered that the road was circular.

Maybe enlightenment isn’t a flash of light or a choir of invisible monks. Maybe it’s simpler than that.

Maybe it’s standing under a tree on a quiet afternoon, making the shaka sign to nobody in particular, while the ocean breathes slowly in the background and the number 0 waits patiently above your head like an unopened door.