I can hear the shuffle of cars on the highway behind our house. Nights have found themselves alone at my mercy more often than not these past few months. Spring is like that to the system of a man. It makes time harder to waste when there is so much of it. So I listen. I listen to the humming of the refrigerator, people changing lanes, the fizz in my water. I listen and I tire. But I don’t sleep because my dreams are all too warm and I wake up soaked with them. It is this that gives me such an angry point of view. It is this that makes me call for my mother.
I read a story once about a woman whose baby was still born. She brought the baby to the Buddha and begged him to bring the child back to life. He told her that he could only breathe life into the baby if the woman could bring him a grain of rice from a house that had seen no loss. So, this woman lugs her dead baby from village to village knocking on doors and calling for those who have never lost anyone. It takes time for her to realize that no one escapes the pain of grief, that death is our common exit, no one gets out alive. She gives up her search, buries her baby and takes up with the Buddha.
My mother died almost ten years ago and I still knock on doors. Cars pass. My mouth runs dry. My feet ache. I don’t sleep. So I knock on doors. I know the Buddha’s answer is right. I know the Buddha like others know Jesus and when I think of what the Buddha is asking me to give up, I understand better why Jesus was killed the way he was.
No comments:
Post a Comment