After midnight -
No coming, no going.
Where did the commuters arrive
After ninety years of city transport?

The poem starts with a postmodern game of meaning - it is about "taking a bus" (ordinary, every-day urban experience - every morning the same route), a symbol of "repetition". However, to take a bus now becomes: to resume, to take a Buddhist path. The bus is transformed into, or becomes a simulacrum of "The Diamond Vehicle" (Vajrayana). A similar "game of meaning" and simulacra runs through the whole poem.

1) Those who are favored to enter the bus (because of crowded condition) - means: who are "initiated" or favored to enter the Buddhist path - they punch their tickets for some bus destination, but it could be also for nirvana. Thus, taking the same ride, can lead to different destiantions: for some that is the bus stop "Grean wreath" - for some it is nirvana.

2) Typical bus warnings (Do not conversate with the driver - Keep off the door) are supposed to keep passengers alert - not to indulge into actions which undermine their collective or individual safety. But, also they can be taken as impulses of awakening and alertness in Buddhist terms - therefore they can be also understood as mantras and dharanis.

3) Chart (map) of the zone system of city transport, becomes a mandala. It shows that you can ride through the city all day round, but also reminds you of the final destination (awakening, nirvana).

4) Series of dilapidated buildings (facades) are seen as passing by (samsara).

5) The "emptiness" of the window serves as simulacra for the Buddhist concept of "emptiness" (sunyata).

6) The transparence of the window, serves as simulacra of "insight" or "seeing through" something (vipasyana).

7) The reflection of the window pane shows the "face before you were born" (Buddha nature). Although, my face - which I see reflected in the window pane, for a moment, when the pane is in shade - is actually a face swollen from lack of sleep.

8) Squeezed between other people (Future-Buddhas, according to the Buddhist teaching) I choke overwhelmed by a (Buddhist) sentiment (compassion ), but also by stench from the overcrowded vehicle, and not-too-clean future Buddhas. The "difference and repetition" is brought into play by two images: (a) stinking (and over-crowded) future Buddhas, and (b) choking, which has two sources: compassion and body odour. Everytime you take a bus ride, they repeat, as well as all other features.

9) The final simulacra is played by the transport condition after midnight - no buses coming, no buses going - a condition related to the famous Buddhist expression: "No coming, no going."

10) In certain stage of Buddhist practice one is left with a puzzle - where-from I started, where have I "arrived" - after so many years of practice? This kind of puzzle is simulated in the poem with another puzzle - where did the commuters arrive after ninety years of public transport?*

Thus, taking a bus ride becomes a simulacrum of Buddhist practice, of taking a course in Buddhist teachings. From entering the bus every step opens one of the Buddhist vistas or truths. From one point, it puts together something boring and repetitive, (a person who will ride the bus for the next forty or so years, without really getting somewhere), and something revealing and liberating - right now. Now, there is double-crossing simulation in the poem. Future Buddhas simulate ordinary commuters, passengers in a public bus, not aware of their inborn Buddha nature. Deep, inside, they "know". The poet simulates a poem written by a Buddhist, riding with others in a public bus. He simulates (by writing this poem) that he knows the deep (Buddhist) meaning of taking a bus ride, but hides it from others, just to "reveal" it in a poem, for the few privileged. However, this "deep meaning" is part of the simulation created by the poem. Otherwise, he is also ignorant like others.

The explanation I add may be helpful to the reader,* even enlightening for purposes of analysis, but in all its details, it lacks the rezonating spirit, which (I hope) my poem has, at least "a little bit"**.

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* Note: The poem was written fifteen years ago (in 1982) when the public transport in Belgrade marked its 90-th anniversary (this year - 1997 - it marked 105 years). However, it was not written to mark this anniversary, nor to propagate Buddhism, but to say something that could not be told by other means.

** This expression - "a little bit" - I borrow from J.P. Sartre, who in his novel "Nausea" at the end, says that the black composer and the singer of his song "Some of these days..." - they saved themselves, they have justified their existence, or at least "a little bit."