70 The Rains
For the past few days it’s been raining more or less continuously, stopping just long enough in the mornings to be able to get down for meals. My umbrella, bought cheaply, is small and leaky and going out when it’s like this means risking getting my clothes wet, and one set has been hanging on the line for a few days but still hasn’t dried. At this time there are many leeches around and they can be difficult to see amongst the mud and the leaves that are picked up along the forest paths. I usually break up the sitting meditation on these long afternoons by doing some walking meditation, but when it’s like this I find myself confined to the kutir.
Outside the whole forest seems to be enveloped in a cloud, and even nearby trees are grey and indistinct. Yesterday I watched the water pitter-patter from leaf to leaf for hours on end, but today I’ve grown tired of it all. This area is in the wet-zone and I think it must rain for a good nine months of the year – we should be at the end of the rains by now, perhaps this is the last fall before the onset of the dry season. Trapped in my room for hour upon hour I become rather miserable, then during a break in the weather I hear an old friend whistle his cheery call in the forest and I remember how to smile again.
it is a quiet misty morning,
and yet the music is there
it is there in the trees
– it is moving around –
the branches and leaves
respond to its presence
it is there near the ground
– it you care to listen –
the grasses and flowers
acknowledge its passing
it is there – of course –
in the song of the birds
as they slowly arise
and greet the new day
it is there in the air
– if any have ears –
it is the breath and the power
and the music of life.
After morning tea I usually go to the courtyard outside the temple and watch the stars fade and the light of dawn come in. The jungle goes through a transition at this time, with the creatures of the night retiring, and those of the day awakening. As I stood there this morning unexpectedly a warm breeze blew across the tree tops and left a sweet perfume in its wake. In the temple the monks started chanting, and there was suh a silence around it seemed that both the heavens and the earth were listening.
Under the night sky
I stand in awe:
the light of stars
has travelled
a million, million miles
before falling on my eyes.
Slowly,
night fades,
day comes in,
and I know in my heart
that breath of silence
which pervades this passing world.