'Happy Birthday, Brother Vincent': Lama Surya Das pays loving tribute to one of the earth's great souls

At any exhibit of his paintings, I find myself standing long and strong before his self-portraits, attracted by the aura of spiritual energy in his dissolving-and-simultaneously revealing, halo-encircled depictions, particularly (given my Buddhist leanings) the one of himself “a simple worshipper of the eternal Buddha,” as he once wrote.

Look at this self portrait of Van Gogh as a Buddhist Monk. (via Metafilter)