“It's "just this" he said, "and nothing more." a squirrel on Zen master Fa-ch'an’s roof.
I sit, eyes closed softly,
Mind drifting on a lazy river—
A thought, drifting by,
“Why do my thoughts seem to drift faster than me?”
I let it go, but here comes another one.
This thought is trying to catch up with the first one, complaining about being left dangling, uncompleted—
I tell myself, “Let it go, release it, let it dangle.”
Briefly I open my eyes—"oh no, I let in more thoughts, which one do I tend to first?”
New thought—"I know, I’ll close my eyes and start again. I’ll let them all go back, where?
Somewhere. But why do I want to know where my thoughts go?”
And I answer myself because I knew I would. As a child I would ask my parents questions, as all children do, and when they tired of them, or could not give me a satisfactory answer, they would simply say “because” as if that explained life in a nutshell.
Now that I am older, I’m not necessarily any wiser, but I sit and try to let go of the questions I cannot answer, to let go of my thoughts so I can see with clarity what is and is not. The river is still murky, but the thoughts drift a little slower now and are a little less intrusive.
When I open my eyes now, and my children ask me why I meditate, I simply say “because.” Then they close their eyes and catch random thoughts of their own drifting on lazy rivers and think their father is only a fish swimming upstream.
Oh, another thought…. were my parents truly wise beyond their years? Were they trying to tell me that “because” is another way of saying “just this, nothing more?”
—Paul Causey
No comments:
Post a Comment