Bowing Journals | Top | << Back | Next >> | End
HENG SURE: June 15, 1977. How fine to have someone make the distinction for us: L.A. County Sheriffs approach in four squad cars and a paddy wagon. Five deputies surround us hostile and wary. "Got your knives with you?" (They think we are the knife-assault robe-wearers.) "Where you going, to see your guru up the road?" I get frisked from behind.
"No, we’re going to Mendocino county."
"Oh, wait a minute, are you guys Krishna or Buddhist?"
"Buddhists! We’ve been checked by Johnson and Lovick."
"Oh, okay, never mind then. Hey do you do that all day?" (Everyone visibly relaxes.)
"Yeah, we get up at four and pray and meditate and bow until 10:00 at night and we eat once a day. We are total vegetarians, too."
Whistles of admiration…grins and slow shakes of heads. "Wow. One meal a day?"
"Okay, see you later. Good luck."
"Hope you catch ‘em."
"You guys don’t carry weapons?"
"It’s against the rules!"
"That’s good news! See you."
Existence is a Passing Truck of Fruit
You’re bowing in the gutter on a blazing shimmering tarmac highway. The glare forces your eyes shut, the roar of traffic plugs your ears, your knees, hands, elbows, and forehead all pain and ache so you hardly feel your body. Your mind recites the praise of the sutra and the assembly until it feels full and fuller and expanding. All senses are plugged up, blocked and busy. All doors are closed save one.
Suddenly in the next breath it’s lemon heaven. A totally all-pervasive cloud of lemon scent attacks the nose, fills the ten directions, and perfumes the Dharma Realm. You think, "I must be bowing under a lemon grove." Or "somebody broke a bottle of lemon juice on the gutter." You take your eyes off your nose long enough to scan for lemons and there is nothing, nothing but the envelope of scent and the mind of passing semi-trailer. What seemed so real is absolutely empty, just like reality.
In fact, your mind rallies to supply the information: last week standing on the cliffs in Santa Monica during exercises you saw two huge trucks packed full of yellow lemons and one of red strawberries heading south for the farmers markets of L.A. and San Diego. That truck leaves a trail of fragrance behind like a comet’s tail, that’s what passed on the road and fooled you into thinking you’d bowed your way into a lemon mine.
Half an hour later the scent of strawberries clouded around my world and permeated every hair pore--yes, another passing fruit truck.
A thought occurs: isn’t that the way with life? In this world of impermanence, your senses tell you there is something real right before you and when you try to find happiness by reaching for it, it disappears. Real happiness is not found in things or in ideas. Lasting satisfaction does not drift away before the wind because it is borne of faith, practice, and vows and solid accomplishment in the eternally dwelling Three Treasure of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. When the fruit truck passes, put your head down and bow.