The Thinker, my Buddhist friend, my sounding board, my conscience keeper, called earlier today and said just one word,
“Coffee?”
And that is how we ended up once again in that quaint noisy little café overlooking the market place. I, with my coffee and he, with his ice-tea. We were meeting after months and I know that he had been away in the Himalayas. As he sat there, he dipped into his pocket and presented me with a beautiful book on the interpretation of ‘om mani padme hum’ the most powerful Buddhist mantra. Tibetans believe that chanting of this mantra invokes in those that chant it a feeling of absolute compassion and a state of bliss. I asked him if this was true.
Like always, he smiled and waited while thoughts arranged themselves in his mind. He then dipped his finger into the ice tea and flicked a drop in the air, chanted the mantra and offered his drink to nature, returning a little of what had been given to him.
He then said:
“Bliss is not so much about feeling happy and satisfied; it’s more about a feeling that things can’t get any better. The moment one feels that something can’t get any better then one feels a tiny rush of bliss.
There is so much perfection all around us that we don’t have to look very far to see something that can’t get any better. Almost everything in the nature around us is perfect, there is bliss everywhere. We just need to unite with nature.
Just like the river unites with the ocean
Just like the wind unites with the fragrance of the flowers
Just like the dawn unites with the warmth of the sun
Just like the prayers written on the flags unite with the winds
Just like the shrill call of the eagles unites with the peace of the valley below
Each loses itself while trying to unite but eventually gains so much from the union. So it is with the realization of bliss. We go looking for perfection and when we find it, the discovery leaves us filled with awe. We wonder in the ability of nature to awe us with its tiniest creation and it is in that realization, my friend, where bliss hides”.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
Gusts of wind
I have always been fascinated with wind and what it can do with light things like a feather, or a leaf, or an empty plastic bag. I like the way it will make these things swirl and float, make them rise or dive, twist and turn, literally make them dance to some ethereal tune I cannot hear. I don’t know why this should fascinate me or why I should see beauty in it but I do and that is how it is. Sometimes when I write I get the same feeling, as if my hand is the wind and as it writes it takes those words and swirls them, turns them, makes them float about. As the work progresses I see all those words I wrote dancing, rising and falling, happy and free.
There was once a friend who did the same with the spoken word and as he told stories he would hold us all in a spell. His eyes, his hands, his face, in fact his whole body would weave those words into complicated ‘maya-jaals’ that would capture us, binding us into tight little bundles totally at his disposal.
He loved to tell stories but he loved more the way he could cast a spell on us. Unfortunately he took things a bit too far when, a few years ago, he was in a village in Rajasthan and was as usual telling stories. Caught up in is own omnipotence he dared to make eyes with the nubile daughter of the local thakur. The thakur didn’t like that and had his tongue nipped off…. Yicks!! Now my friend is trying his hand at writing but the magic is just not there.
One of his favorite stories was about a Buddhist monk who was on his way somewhere along with his young disciple. The path was through a forest and since it had been raining for a while, the path was quite slushy. At a particularly muddy intersection the two monks came across a very attractive young woman in a beautiful kimono. Obviously the woman was pondering whether to cross the intersection and risk dirtying her kimono. The older monk sensed her dilemma so he promptly hoisted her in his arms and crossed the intersection. Then he dropped her on the other side, accepted her thanks and carried on. That evening when the two monks had reached a monastery the young monk opened his mouth to speak.
He said “My reverend master, we are monks and it is forbidden for us to touch women, let alone carry one in our arms”
The older monk gently replied, “My dear fellow, I left that woman at the other side of the intersection but it looks like you are still carrying her.”
One of the best storytellers I have ever known was my great grand mother who, even at the age of 86 years, loved to spook us with her ghost stories. Every summer all us cousins would get together at our ancestral village and come evening she would light a lamp on the terrace and we little kids would, like helpless moths, gravitate towards her. She would then commence on some spook story, her voice clacking like a witch, her misshapen teeth and her several facial warts and wattles would add to the effect and in no time we would be jumping with sheer fright at every shadow, at every squeak, at every rustle of the leaves. Come bedtime and several beddings would be rolled out for us all on the very same terrace. None of us were brave enough to shut our eyes and how we swore we would never again listen to her stories but come next evening she would light her lamp and call us in. Such helpless moths we were.
There was once a friend who did the same with the spoken word and as he told stories he would hold us all in a spell. His eyes, his hands, his face, in fact his whole body would weave those words into complicated ‘maya-jaals’ that would capture us, binding us into tight little bundles totally at his disposal.
He loved to tell stories but he loved more the way he could cast a spell on us. Unfortunately he took things a bit too far when, a few years ago, he was in a village in Rajasthan and was as usual telling stories. Caught up in is own omnipotence he dared to make eyes with the nubile daughter of the local thakur. The thakur didn’t like that and had his tongue nipped off…. Yicks!! Now my friend is trying his hand at writing but the magic is just not there.
One of his favorite stories was about a Buddhist monk who was on his way somewhere along with his young disciple. The path was through a forest and since it had been raining for a while, the path was quite slushy. At a particularly muddy intersection the two monks came across a very attractive young woman in a beautiful kimono. Obviously the woman was pondering whether to cross the intersection and risk dirtying her kimono. The older monk sensed her dilemma so he promptly hoisted her in his arms and crossed the intersection. Then he dropped her on the other side, accepted her thanks and carried on. That evening when the two monks had reached a monastery the young monk opened his mouth to speak.
He said “My reverend master, we are monks and it is forbidden for us to touch women, let alone carry one in our arms”
The older monk gently replied, “My dear fellow, I left that woman at the other side of the intersection but it looks like you are still carrying her.”
One of the best storytellers I have ever known was my great grand mother who, even at the age of 86 years, loved to spook us with her ghost stories. Every summer all us cousins would get together at our ancestral village and come evening she would light a lamp on the terrace and we little kids would, like helpless moths, gravitate towards her. She would then commence on some spook story, her voice clacking like a witch, her misshapen teeth and her several facial warts and wattles would add to the effect and in no time we would be jumping with sheer fright at every shadow, at every squeak, at every rustle of the leaves. Come bedtime and several beddings would be rolled out for us all on the very same terrace. None of us were brave enough to shut our eyes and how we swore we would never again listen to her stories but come next evening she would light her lamp and call us in. Such helpless moths we were.
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