Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06is losing its customary bearings. Like my mother. In my last anxious visitsbefore leaving England, her mind was deteriorating: “What time isit?” was her constant refrain, repeated every minute or two. Age is brutalat exposing our instinctive need to hold reality in a mesh of words.“It doesn’t matter, mum.” But it did. Each time would be carefully writtendown, relating to nothing but the need to keep track.Younger minds can put a little more flesh on the bones of our insecurity.They can go onward to the next memory.N I C KIt was forty-eight kilometres to Patna from Vaishali, and we had reckonedon getting there in time for the meal the next day. We walked southon a minor road heading for Hajipur. It was a pleasant enough road withlittle traffic and trees to shade us, but we soon found it hard going. Bythe afternoon we were feeling as tired as we had upon reaching Vaishali.Our stop there had obviously done little to alleviate our rundown state.The fatigue gradually closed in, numbing the mind and reducing myawareness to little more than the road stretching ahead.We were no longer trying to do the puja and meditation late in theafternoon, leaving it for after dark when we could be alone. Everyevening at about six I would start to yearn for a place to stop for thenight. But I was plagued with the need to find somewhere nice. I stillhad associations from other walking trips, of pleasant evenings bycampfires out in the wilds, finishing the day in time to enjoy sitting inmeditation under the stars. So I would start looking for this ideal campsite, which of course didn’t exist. Ajahn Sucitto wouldn’t mind wherewe stopped and just wanted to keep going; his response to adversitywas always to plod on. Eventually it would get too dark to find anywherein particular, and we would end up stumbling into some mangogrove or other where we would collapse, sort out our stuff, and thentry to do the puja and meditation.1 7 2