The koan my teacher gave me almost a year ago continues to work on my heart-mind. Even though I have offered him an "answer" he accepted, and I have "completed" the process, I realize the answer was always there and it never disappears.
I have faith that my teacher knew this about the koan and how I would approach it!
So the question and the answer percolate.
There is a natural spring nearby that I sometimes visit. It is the source of a lovely stream that leads to a human created pond, then spills back into its wild stream nature. In fact, the stream is deemed world class, because it has all the right properties for trout habitat, and the trout are sly and smart. If you catch one, you can only imagine that the trout jumped willingly on to your hook. And then you release them.
My koan reminds me of the bubbling spring, the well spring, the source--and the answer is a trout that decided to jump on to my hook, so that I might reel it into my hands for closer inspection. A sense of wonder, of awe and joy; and then the answer is released, it does not belong to the ego self, but to Buddha, and is transformed through Buddha, through the vast universe of bodhichitta!
But I have not forgotten how it felt to reel in the wild trout, to hold it in my hands and then to slip it back into the stream.
I walk meditation in the light rain.
My slippers become slippers of freshly fallen cherry blossoms, crushed and vibrant.
Thinking we are traveling somewhere, the cats follow me.
Where are we going? What are we doing? Who will we meet?
Nowhere, nothing, no one!
1 comment:
Bravo!
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