After Saagar’s death, it felt as if a big black boulder had landed in the middle of our living room. There wasn’t much space around it. It occupied the entire room. I had no escape from this uninvited guest. I had to squeeze my way around it to get past. Its roughness abraded my skin. It was stubborn, heavy, ugly, lifeless, crude and unmoving. It had made a home in our house. It was here to stay. I had no choice but to live with it and look at it. It stared right back at me non-stop. Its weight was suffocating. It sat on my chest, jutting its chin out, determined to get me. I pushed with all my might but it didn’t budge an iota.
It’s still there. But I can negotiate my way around it without the jaggedness making me bleed. We can sit and watch each other without wanting to kill each other. It has relaxed and settled into my space and I can breathe. A green shoot has peeped from underneath it. Another slender sapling has appeared out of the crevice near the window. The old sharp corners don’t catch anymore. They have rounded off. Life is happening around it.
If I had remained firmly rooted in the pure physicality of the world, I couldn’t have co-existed with this deeply unpleasant and unwanted occurrence. Spiritual teachings and practices have been a respite from my mind, the generator of pain. I am nowhere near ‘wise’ but I remain open to universal knowledge. I allow it to bring me peace, however momentary.
Amaravati Buddist monestary is one of my refuges. A few months ago I spent 5 days there in Silent retreat. A beautiful plant with asymmetric leaves overflowed from an indoor pot. With permission I brought 3 leaves home, allowed them to root in water and then planted them in soil. They look happy.
In December 2017 we planted an Acer in Saagar’s memory at Amaravati. It’s called ‘Winter flame’ or Acer Palmatum. A friend of a friend is a ceramist. She is making a set of drums and drumming sticks with Saagar’s initials, to be placed at the tree. I have never met her. She has never met me or Saagar. But we are connected. We all are connected.
An excerpt from a Dhamma talk by Ajahn Anando:
“We suffer because we constantly chase pleasure. We run away from pain.
Loose the greed for sensuous things.
See that the letting go of the world is peaceful.
Time is nothing. There is only ‘now’ and ‘change’.
Past and future are ‘thoughts’ in the Now.
Is there any way you can get into the past? Or the future?
Is there any way you can get out of ‘Now’?”
Resource:
kidsaregifts 