I had a dream a few days ago, the details of which are not terribly important I suppose, except that it was a rather lucid sort of dream about a meeting between a cast of characters who all turned out to be different aspects of myself. They were discussing the question "Why are you here?".
The meaning of “here” was a bit vague – it could have meant here in the dream, here at the temple, here wherever one finds oneself, here in a body, here in the universe… Actually, they are all the same “here” anyway I suppose. From the point of view of ultimate reality, there is nowhere that isn’t “here”. But that’s a digression from the actual question, which is a good one I think. “Why are you here?” The answer to this question will change and shift with time and perception, but it points to who and what we think we are, as well as to what we think we are looking for. The answer also points to what is important to us.
Unfortunately, the meeting was adjourned approximately two seconds before my alarm clock went off, and "we" didn't arrive at any hard and fast conclusions.
There was a cremation here a few days ago. An old nun passed away from cancer. Most of the temple people gathered in a clearing near one end of the temple grounds. Monks had worked through the heat of a very hot and sultry day to stack logs in a platform seven layers high, to set up lights and generator and chairs and mats. The coffin was high on the stack of logs, nuns ranged in rows on one side, monks milling about on another, laypeople on mats on the ground on another, trees behind. Luang por arrived. There were no words, no memories or telling of stories or talking about what was or might be. He lit the fire and the flames leaped through the dry wood quickly. Monks gathered around the growing flames, giving their own versions of blessings. Luang por left.
The meaning of “here” was a bit vague – it could have meant here in the dream, here at the temple, here wherever one finds oneself, here in a body, here in the universe… Actually, they are all the same “here” anyway I suppose. From the point of view of ultimate reality, there is nowhere that isn’t “here”. But that’s a digression from the actual question, which is a good one I think. “Why are you here?” The answer to this question will change and shift with time and perception, but it points to who and what we think we are, as well as to what we think we are looking for. The answer also points to what is important to us.
Unfortunately, the meeting was adjourned approximately two seconds before my alarm clock went off, and "we" didn't arrive at any hard and fast conclusions.
There was a cremation here a few days ago. An old nun passed away from cancer. Most of the temple people gathered in a clearing near one end of the temple grounds. Monks had worked through the heat of a very hot and sultry day to stack logs in a platform seven layers high, to set up lights and generator and chairs and mats. The coffin was high on the stack of logs, nuns ranged in rows on one side, monks milling about on another, laypeople on mats on the ground on another, trees behind. Luang por arrived. There were no words, no memories or telling of stories or talking about what was or might be. He lit the fire and the flames leaped through the dry wood quickly. Monks gathered around the growing flames, giving their own versions of blessings. Luang por left.
People were given little flowers made of wood
shavings to throw on the flames, which we did very quickly as the inferno was
extremely hot. We sat for a while, watching the flames dashing for the sky,
rising over 2/3 the height of the nearby trees and showering sparks into the
wind of its own passage. Gradually, people drifted off. The generator shut down
and the lights went out. Heat lightening flashed frequently, but silently, in
the distance and the hot air of the night had a lightly burning feel to it,
when it found enough energy to sulk past on a small breeze.
It is the Korean custom to be present during a
cremation and so when Joy died her family and I walked down to the funeral
home. We watched as her body, on its little pallet of wood and cardboard, was
placed in the furnace and waited while the furnace roared and she was consumed…
these are images etched onto my memory.
Hardwood burns for a long time. The coffin was
consumed and the logs threatening to fall before I left, but the platform still
stood, the orange flames burning my memory along with the remains of a life I
had not known. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and we will all be here one
day.
The next day I went again to look at the
cremation site. The monks had been there already and everything was gone. The
wood, the fire, the ashes, the lights. Nothing but a clearing and an open spot
of earth under a hot blue sky.
On the door to my room someone has written the
words “The Buddha’s path leads beyond the delusive notions of self and death.” In his video about a
shift in perception Adyashanti talks laughingly about dying with a person
who is going through the process of her own awakening. That there is more to
life and death than life and death seems to be a certainty. But, he says you
can’t take anything with you into that something more, not even your self.
As I write this, the birds are singing – as they pretty
much always are here – the sky is clouded but spots of bright sunshine appear
from time to time. A fan is blowing hot air across my hotter body and I have
been staying by myself for most of the morning. I notice that I have fallen
back into a habit of mine of writing from an almost sorrowful place, like the
writing is a photograph all in sepia. That’s a symptom of falling into the past
and holding to it I think, as if it was better somehow than the present. Hmm…
So – after all this rambling about, I will leave you with the dreamed question that started all of this.
Why are you here?
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