As a 22-year-old art student in London, artist Richard Long walked back and forth along a straight line in a grassy field in the English countryside, leaving a track that he then photographed in black and white. A Line Made by Walking (1967), above, was the first of many remarkable works he made on the theme of “paths”.

… 

…

……It’s a theme we think about often, as it is at the heart of a very useful Buddhist teaching:

Whatever occurs in the confused mind is regarded as the path.  Everything is workable. It is a fearless proclamation, the lion’s roar.

      —Trungpa Rimpoche

So, there is “the path” —whatever we are doing that provides an opportunity for learning; it is all workable— and then there are “paths” so perfectly evoked in this haiku by Buson…

     Coming back—
so many pathways
       through the spring grass.

 

Both resonate with possibility…