On a sunny day, a young boy of seven was walking along the bank of a small lake. The boy enjoyed walking and exploring near the blue lake which wasn’t too far from his home. This day was nice and warm and the air still. The boy knelt down beside the lake to look into the water, as he had done many times before; he always enjoyed watching the fish in the lake, wondering what it would be like to be a fish. He was an imaginative boy, and he loved exploring the woods and pastures near the lake. Though he liked playing with the other children in his street, he preferred his time alone exploring. He found the other children noisy and the play harsh. He was a quiet boy and he couldn’t quite grasp the banter and the dynamics involved.
As he knelt down by the lake, he didn’t see any fish but he saw his reflection in the mirror like surface of the lake. It wasn’t the first time he saw his reflection in the lake but this time he looked, really looked and he stared at the reflection looking back at him. He thought what would it be like if he was in the lake looking at himself, kneeling on the bank. He knew what was true, but he always felt free out here, free to pretend and bend what was true, so he let himself be the boy in the lake and he wondered, nothing in particular, just wondered.
The boy slipped into the water, drawn to the reflection, drawn to him in the water and he found himself looking at the boy on the bank and decided to leave his self there. And he wondered what it was like to be the water and he became the water of the lake. How different it was to be the water, to be fluid and not solid. As the water he asked himself what is it that I do and he answered, ‘I am home to the fish and the ducks and quench the thirst of the animals that come to drink’.
The water was inquisitive and wandered to the opposite bank and flowed up upon the grass and lay there. He laid there and felt the grass beneath him and he wondered, nothing in particular, just wondered. The water became the grass and it felt good. He felt the expansiveness and he felt the sun and all was good. He asked himself what he did and he answered that he fed the sheep and gave shelter to the ants and the insects.
He became aware of the tree over there and he thought that it would be good to know something of the tree and so to the tree he went and the tree did feel good. He held the tree and felt the bark. The tree he became. He felt himself planted deeply in the ground, feeling tall and strong, feeling free. And to himself he wondered, what it was that he did and he thought he would answer himself and the answer came, ‘I am a home to the birds, I give shade to the sheep and sometimes a young boy comes and sits at my base’. And the boy sat there looking out to nowhere and he wished there were mountains here, for he had never seen a real mountain except in books and he would dearly love to climb a mountain.
So he sat and he sat and thought of a mountain and he found himself climbing that mountain and as time went by he reached the top of that mountain and he felt ecstatic. From the top of the mountain he saw things differently, actually he didn’t see anything, for he wasn’t looking at anything but he knew he was seeing differently. He felt like he was on top of the world.
He was very happy, just sitting on the top of the mountain and he wondered about nothing in particular, he just wondered and he became the mountain. He didn’t think about becoming the mountain and he doesn’t know how he became the mountain, he doesn’t know when he became the mountain, he didn’t know where or why he became the mountain. But he was the mountain and it was good. It was quiet and still and he felt so big and strong and immovable. It surprised him how huge and massive he was and the mountain was still. He hadn’t realised how mountains felt, but he now knew. The stillness grew, the quietness, the mountainness grew and the feeling stopped, just stillness, quietness and mountainness.
The mountainness grew, the mountain’s awareness grew, he was aware of the land below, of the tree, of the grass, of the lake and the boy at the lake and all the land beyond, still quietly still. There was no boundary between the mountain and all before it, it all blended into one. There was nothing to do, he didn’t need anything, there was no wants, no desires, no thoughts, just stillness and an awareness that the stillness was everything, everything was in the stillness, but no desire for anything. At some level or somehow there was an awareness that to know, see, or have anything of the everything would cost a little bit of the stillness. Noise, movement would enter, the stillness would become less, less whole.
The stillness stayed and it was good. The tree, here he was under the tree, how long he was the mountain he could not tell. But it was time to go home. From that time on, especially when he was in the classroom and he was lucky for he sat at the back by a window, he might look out and see the mountain and there he found himself and the stillness. For he was a quiet boy and he tired of the noise of the classroom, most of what went on in the classroom seemed like pointless noise. He learned all he needed as the mountain.
By Philip Martin
posted by How to Heal Cancer
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