The Nature of Suffering
July 04, 2008
Split in Two ~ Canon 30d
A few of weeks ago I set out for a meditative afternoon walk through Battery Kemble Park, just a few miles from my home. Like a compassionate umbrella, the tall canopy of mighty oak, tulip and birch trees created a surprisingly hospitable environment even though the temperature was pushing close to 90 degrees in direct sunlight. Making my way through the forest vestibule of greenness felt like walking into a cool, deciduous cathedral, lush with wild transience blooming and dying all around me. Turbulent thunderstorms had rolled through the neighborhood a day or two before, rendering a moist yet mud-free carpet of earth beneath my rubber-soled toes. Each step was met by a forgiving soil, a perfect blend of clay and rain supporting my journey.
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Meditation Cushion ~ Canon 30d
As I approached my favorite resting spot; an enormous rock jutting out from the creek bed; I was met with a sense that something had changed in the now-familiar home of bugs, chipmunks, ravens and woodpeckers. Some sort of spatial rearrangement had taken place, and the quality of light was somehow different. It was 6pm, Where was the abundance of light coming from? I wondered. Standing at the edge of the over-sized boulder (which I fondly think of as my meditation cushion), the remnants of a violent, gut-wrenching performance made itself known to me. For a split second, I was breathless – dumbstruck with wonder – at the scope of the chain reaction that had played out just a day or two before: a heroic oak, whose broken roots lay exposed and alone on the creek's vulnerable shore, had been struck down – by an act of God, apparently – and in its final dramatic moments a karmic domino effect erupted which would take the lives of not one, but five trees in total. The humbled tree decimated a sapling birch and tulip tree before squarely hitting an oak of comparable size on the opposite side of the creekbed. The point of impact for the falling oak must have occurred where its long body divided into two branchy appendages – the force splitting the trunk into two perfect vertical halves while ripping off a massive patch of bark on the still standing tree, which seemed to heave heavy sighs while shivering in the late afternoon sunlight.
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Heavy Sighs ~ Canon 30d
Vulnerable, Fragile, Sensitive ~ Canon 30d
I absorbed the scene with all my senses. There was so much carnage – so many metaphors for this vulnerable, fragile, sensitive life we're all immersed in together and suffer over. I thought of how chaos can strike without warning; my sacred spot – a place whose biggest drama was a hovering bug's view over the trickling creek water – was now scarred, chaotic, a scene of discord and disharmony. The smell of freshly ripped wood; the clean, bare look of it; was too much to resist, and I did my best Tom Girl Leap off the side of the rock – admittedly, a less than stellar dismount – but no one was looking, except for the trees, that is... who watch and listen, and cry and mourn, for the redundant story of Death by Storm, followed by the all too familiar sacrificial transformation from tree to humble nurse log.
With one foot in the water and the other crunching across a carpet of worn pebbles, I crawled beneath the right half of the dying oak, balancing myself by hugging it's half circumference at one point. A palpable energy met my embrace which made my heart sing a song of wonder and ache for all my powerlessness in the aftermath of such turmoil, but soon my head appeared between the division, and like an archeologist or crime scene investigator, I gently ran my fingers across the fibrous guts on both sides of me. The clear and present danger of a nasty splinter put a temporary stop to my investigation, so I switched gears and began pulling at tags of tree fibers, which easily curled and bent with moderate effort. I tucked three strips into my back pocket, knowing they would be a poignant reminder of the nature of suffering and this transient life once they found a new home on my meditation altar.
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Inspecting the Split ~ Canon 30d
The upper branches, sparkling in all their greenery, covered the sloping side of the forest like big leafy bushes. How long would it take for each leaf to curl and dehydrate? How long before no one would think twice to ponder the nature of suffering while walking past the jutting rock's scenic overlook?
The inside investigation now over, I pulled myself to a standing place on one of the half-trunks to explore the external metaphors. The tree-turned-bridge was more than sturdy enough to bear my weight with confidence, prompting the former teenager within to playfully scurry up, up, up to the point of impact where I inspected the peripheral damage: two more downed trees and a sea of writhing, twisting branches everywhere. One tree, one life, can wreak so much damage on so many others. I felt as though all the eyes of the forest had descended upon me as I concentrated my heart on the lesson nature had drawn in front of me.
The woods may not speak, but the life teeming within it is continuously manifesting energy. The trees may not see or hear in a way which makes sense to our human understanding, but nature is always, always speaking to us, and understanding the language requires an inner pause, and a willingness to open. Nature has an uncanny way of reflecting things which we know on a level so deep the conscious mind itself may not be aware of them yet. If we are open and relaxed, these soul-reflections can touch the heart, uncovering buried inner knowings, and because these realizations come to us in the form of images, they are easily remembered symbols which will animate in the heart-mind long after the linear mind would have discarded the memory as trivial and rendered it forgotten.
As the forest spoke, I ceased my resistance to the chaos surrounding me. Letting go of my heightened sense of curiosity and excitement, I opened my heart to the suffering and the deciduous nature of all things. An unexpected whisper carried by a barely discernible breeze rustled through the dying leaves, "this is life. this is you. have compassion for me. this breaking apart, this falling down, this suffering and splitting in two is the same suffering experienced by all beings. it's in the letting go, the acceptance of what is, and giving your life for others, that will allow appreciation and joy to manifest inside you."
Impact ~ Canon 30d
Decapitated ~ Canon 30d
In time, I will find the words and images to reflect on the retreat I attended a couple weeks ago, but instead, these images were asking to be posted this evening. They've been waiting in line longer than the other images have, and when a natural wonder occurs in close proximity to your doorstep, there can be a gentle yet persistent internal push to get it posted.
Posted by vincent at July 4, 2008 09:27 PM
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