liberating creatures

An old monk liked to sit in meditation on a large flat rock next to a placid pool. Yet every time he began his devotions in earnest, just as soon as he had crossed his legs and settled down, he would spot an insect struggling helplessly in the water. Time after time, he would lift up his creaky old body and deliver the tiny creature to safety, before settling down again on his rocky seat. So his contemplations went, day after day..

His brother monks, dedicated meditators who also went off daily to sit alone in the rocky ravines and caves of that desolate region, eventually became aware that the old lama hardly ever managed to sit still but actually spent most of his meditation sessions plucking insects out of the tiny pool. Although it certainly seemed fitting to save the life of a helpless sentient being of any kind, large or small, some of the wondered if the old monk's meditations might not be greatly furthered if he sat undisturbed elsewhere. away from such distractions. One day they finally mentioned their concerns to him.

"Wouldn't it be more beneficial to sit elsewhere and meditate deeply, undisturbed all day? That way you could more swiftly gain perfect enlightenment, and then you could free all living beings from the ocean of conditioned existence?" one asked the old man.

"Perhaps you could just meditate by the pool with your eyes closed," another brother suggested.

"How can you develop tranquility and deep, diamondlike concentration if you keep getting up and sitting down a hundred times in each meditation session?" a young scholarly monk demanded, emboldened by the more tactful queries of his senior brethren... And thus it went on.

The venerable old lama listened attentively, saying nothing. When all had had their say, he bowed gratefully and said, "I'm sure my meditations would be more fruitful if I sat unmoved all day, brothers, as you say. But how can an old worthless one like myself, who has vowed again and again to give this lifetime (and all his lives) to serving and liberating others, just sit with closed eyes and hardened heart, praying and intoning the altruistic mantra of Great Compassion, while right before me helpless creatures are drowning?"

To that simple, humble question, none of the assembled monks could find a reply.

***

I haven't posted a Tibetan Buddhist story in quite some time, but when this one appeared in front of me again a few days ago I decided to paint a quick picture.

Happy Springtime
♡

magical ancient ajanta

Since the work crew is here most days smashing bricks as part of the new window project, I'm not getting much drawing done lately. Instead, I've been going out a lot, beading bits, reading and cruising the internet. The best part of having access to the internet, and the www in particular, has been that I can visit places and learn things it's likely I never would have heard of in times past. One of those places I'd love to see, and likely won't,  are the Ajanta caves of Maharashta, a sparsely populated part of southwestern India.



The caves aren't the classic variety of natural depressions you might find in a mountainous landscape, but instead, are the product of human labor and ingenuity.  As you can see from this picture the caves are part of a horseshoe shaped gorge overlooking a heavily forested river valley. Twenty-two hundred years ago work began on an extensive series of Buddhist cave monuments and over a period of hundreds of years, thirty one of them were carved piece by piece from the rock face. Then, sometime around around the year 1000AD, they fell in to disuse, dense jungle grew around, hiding the caves away from human eyes.



For hundreds of years the Ajanta caves lay undisturbed until 1819, during the time of the British Raj, an officer out on a tiger hunt (yes, they really did) rediscovered one of the doorways. The first thing he did was to carve his name and the date in one of the walls, but the second thing was that he reported his discovery. Archeologists have determined the first of these ancient temple monuments were hewn from bare rock around 230BC. Then a second period of building took place around 460AD. It was this second period that saw the creation of twenty temples that were used as monasteries.



There are paintings everywhere – literally.  Every surface apart from the floor is festooned with narrative paintings.  Time has taken a serious toll on these marvelous works with many parts simply just fragments of what they were when first created.  The stories are almost wholly devoted to Jātakas – tales of the Buddha’s previous lives.  They were created using an ancient method.  The surface was chiseled so it was rough and could hold plaster which was then spread across the surface.  Then the master painter would, while the plaster was still wet, start his work. The colors soaked into the plaster and became a part of the surface.  I'm guessing the artists never imagined their work lasting for over two thousand years. I wonder if my portraits of Crow will last so long? Come to think of it, they just might as he likes to stash them in his personal collection.

But no one knows when and why those caves were abandoned. There are a lot more pictures to be found on the web by googling but not much in the way of video. I did find this one on a World Heritage site if you'd like to have a better look:



It seems to me that human beings usually do their best work when it's done in service to a larger vision. It's guaranteed our new windows, or the building itself, won't last a twentieth as long. That's probably a good thing.

♡

speechless saturday

Except for a few words written by someone far wiser than I. This is called 'Disappearance' by

by Thich Nhat Hahn

~

The leaf tips bend
under the weight of dew.
Fruits are ripening
in Earth's early morning.
Daffodils light up in the sun.
The curtain of cloud at the gateway
of the garden path begins to shift:
have pity for childhood,
the way of illusion.

Late at night,
the candle gutters.
In some distant desert,
a flower opens.
And somewhere else,
a cold aster
that never knew a cassava patch
or gardens of areca palms,
never knew the joy of life,
at that instant disappears-
man's eternal yearning.

♡

fever dreams and feedback loops

I'm not sure that having a cold, even a bad one, can count as a near death experience but I suppose every little pain and inconvenience is practice for the big one and I've been having some practice since last Wednesday afternoon. I feel much better now even though I can't seem to give up this nasty habit of thinking about how we got where we are and where it might lead since none of us has direct control over anything but the way we choose to see things.

Our preconceptions shape the way we interpret our world because we find satisfaction in extracting information from noise as a way to make sense of the world. In this way our belief system can be said to project itself on the environment in a kind of feedback loop. Just like scientists who shape their research based on what they hope to find, modern technology has allowed our imaginations to invent Pentagons and Disneylands. The land itself, gouged into highways, strip malls, chemical plants and factory farms mirrors our fantasies and fears of what we can't control.

I think each of us have the fundamental responsibility as human beings to take responsibility and make judgments and act as wisely as possible to improve things one way or another. I see the general pattern of human society to be miserably sub-optimal and given all the various feedback loops that amplify stupidity and desperation, I don't see any very big opportunities for improvement. Nevertheless, the present possibilities include wonderful and delightful feedback loops of creativity, mutual enjoyment and wisdom. There's no more frontier and here we are at the edge of the greatest collapse yet. Maybe all we need is a culture that goes beyond civilization that will recover some elements of tribal life in the same way a realized master recovers some of the innocence and spontaneity of a child. Anything is possible.♡

Then again, maybe the fever hasn't finished with me yet.