Holding on to the religion...

So I Met a Man From Sri Lanka

Under the rising sun, a sea of grass danced in the wind as a child plays.  Clutching his bokken, he swings his wooden sword at a pretend demon.  His shadow grows under the morning sun he is lost in his play… without a care in the world.  From shadows of the twisted trees, his father watched him as he played.  A smile found its way to his face as he watched the boy play. He was content, for he too had not a care in the world.

The gong, or rather bell rang for the second time, shattering my thoughts.  Had it been forty minutes already?  As we rose we met just outside the Zendo, visiting the Zendo this week was a monk from Sri Lanka.  Jess asked him, what would he recommend to a beginning Buddhist.  To paraphrase he said that breathing was perhaps the most important aspect.  He also said that when we calm the body, we calm the mind, “And that is all I have to say, at least for now.”  Is what I recall.  We also ran into a student from Sinclair, she was taking this class with a different teacher, and said that she wished she had taken the class sooner.

Moving further back into time, perhaps when we first arrived at the Dharma Center.  I remarked to Jess, “Man this is gonna take forever.”  She was like, “I know you’ve been looking forward to it.”  I counter with, “It’s not that, I like to keep my mind active.  Do nothing, thinking nothing is… is not something I know how to do.”  We had arrived just in time, I made it a point to remove my shoes, and out walked a Buddhist Monk… what the… I was not expecting that.  I guess I was expecting some hippie dude.  We are in Yellow Springs after all.

I remember walking into the room, into the Monastery.  I took a moment to look around, and then I started to head for the chairs lining the back of the room.  But Jess headed for the mats.  In the end I realized that, I can always sit in a chair latter.  But, I’ve never sat on a prayer mat… meditation cushion?  All I know is it began to hurt my butt.  I did not even attempt to sit in the lotus position I ended up sitting cross-legged, Indian style.  Then the gong rang.

I remember looking across the room, what am I supposed to do?  Just sit and breathe?  I look to the monk at the head of the room.  He’s sitting their calmly and serene.  Honestly I began to wonder is this preparation for death?  The stillness of it all, it felt very somber.  Eventually I close my eyes, and I rest my hand on the palm of the other.  Man time is taking forever.  Inevitably my eyes open, I can’t keep them shut they wander around the room.  I look at the alter, flowers filled vases adorning the statue.  I notice one of the wall outlets is crooked, and one of the grates on the heater as fallen in on itself.  I try to force my eyes close once again, but to no avail.  My eyes tarry on the sole poster in the room, I think it is blue skinned man but in the fading light it is hard to tell.  It definitely reminds me of Krishna.

The hardwood floors are laced with cracks.  I begin to trace them with my eyes.  I begin to reflect inwards.  Maybe the first crack is reminiscent of my early childhood, cut so short.   As the crack diverges left and right, I think maybe left is where my life could be and to the right is where it is.  As the second crack intersects the third it diverges.  The crack is large, like a large pit.  A trap.  Maybe this is where I am, at the edge of the third crack.  I have been wading in this stagnant water, stuck wandering with no real goals. I have lost count of my breath.

I force my eyes shut, and my mind begins to wander.  So I tell it a story of a young boy.  A Samurai’s child.  He is playing in the field, without a care in the world.  He is playing with his father.  Eventually the father tires, and he instructs the boy to sit, he tells him to just sit and listen.  The father looks down, and explains to the child there is more than just play in this world.  It is full of pain and suffering.  As the sun reached its Zenith, he began to explain to him the ways of the world, he speaks of things pertaining to life, and death.  He passes his knowledge to the boy-child.  By the time of the setting sun, the pair returns to their home.

I open my eyes, and look out the window.  I can hear birds singing, cars driving by, and a child’s laughter.  My eye catches the bush dancing in the wind.  I wonder what causes the wind?  As I watch the branches sway, it reminds me of the ocean.  I can’t help but think of the lapping waves, could the waves cause the wind to blow?  It seems absurd, but perhaps the wave pushes the wind.  I have been told a butterfly’s flapping wings can cause a tsunami in Japan.  But images of ocean, lead me to the moon.  It is understood that celestial body is responsible for the oceans current.  Perhaps it’s gradual spin around the globe, causes the drifting winds.  Man that Yuenling Light in my fridge sounds good right about now. 

I begin to realize my mind is drifting aimlessly from one thought to the next.  I close my eyes and summon my story back, giving something to my weary mind to grasp onto.

The child awakes from his sleep, as the light drifts over his sleeping body.  In a daze he staggers towards the doorway.  He sees his father outside arguing with the Tax Collectors, demanding his tribute.  His father looks back at him solemnly.  “I do not have it, we are but lowly rice peasants.  Our crop is small, our harvest was bad, and we have just enough food for the two of us.” 

The guard snickers, “Come here boy.”  He motions to the child.  “We will take your boy as tribute, and now you can pay us your grains.”

The boy is taken from his home, carried away by the guards.  He is enlisted in a prison camp, sent to mine the river for the precious black sands.  The prisoners are malnourished, being fed just a single cup of rice each.  Fed just enough to keep them alive.  To supplement his hunger, the child learns to hunt the salamanders on the banks of the river.  He considers running away, but they will just track him in the mud.  One day as he is hunting the salamander, and the beast slips away.  He was too tired to chase after the beast, and collapses.  As he lay there sinking into the mud, he notices the lizard’s tracks end at the river’s edge.  He realizes that he can use the river to escape.

As he makes his way home, he can’t wait to see his father, to be reunited at last.  The land begins to look familiar, and he knows that he is close to home.  His pace quickens, he sees his father’s cabin.  It is dilapidated, and covered in weeds.  It is not the place he once remembered.  As he approaches the door, he can tell something is wrong.  He opens it, as the light fills the room he can see his father’s decaying body.  His father had lost the will to live he had killed himself. And that is the story I told myself. 

Then the gong rang once more; I look around puzzled has it been forty minutes already?

After it was all said and done it felt like mere minutes, and not two thirds of an hour.  It’s funny it felt like forever when I first sat down, and in the end it felt so short…Kind of like life. Maybe because there wasn’t a clock for me too look at, that I felt I had been liberated from time.  When our meditation was done, my eyes scanned the rest of dharma center for a clock.  When I found one, I reassured myself it had in fact been forty minutes.  I had been lost from time.  Perhaps it is liberating to live in a world not dominated by numbers.

  I think, no I know, I probably mediated poorly.  My mind jumped from thought to thought.  It was in constant motion.  I probably didn’t sit right at all.  As one hand rested in the other, I could feel the sweat forming.  But does it matter?  I sat, not looking for anything and I found nothing.  Perhaps mediation could be used as a tool to further my writing.  I love stories, the capturing of the human emotion.  Lord knows I don’t spend enough time doing the things I love.

A strange, and perplexing thought traversed my mind, is suffering the ultimate form of entertainment?  My mind struggles, to grasp this concept.  Death dominates the News; stories of war bring the masses to box office.  We watch the suffering of others, transfixed on how they will adapt.  If they will adapt, are we preparing ourselves for such struggles? Or perhaps we are reminded of our own struggles.  I wonder does story telling hold any place in meditation?

Perhaps the story is a metaphor for our lives.  As children, the world is a serene simple place.  We play, un-jaded.  And then it becomes complicated.  We no longer, live in our peaceful bliss.  Perhaps the father figure in the story represents my father, a man who walked away from my life, or perhaps have I turned my back on him.  Or better yet, perhaps the father figure is a representative of god, and it is a story for all the people.  Or whatever benevolent force, that spins the wheels of this world, to appease the Buddhists or atheists of the land.  Due the guards represent the forces of this world tear us from his grace, from his arms.  We live in this paradise, but all we see is hell.  The home we left will never hold the same luster it once did.  Did the man wither away?  Or has he turned his back from us?  Has he lost hope in us?  What of the innocent child, slaying demons.  Perhaps he already knows this world isn’t so innocent.  Perhaps it is simply just a story, one told to keep my mind still.