Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T R E A S U R E 06to be made into bricks) when what I thought was an enormous fish surfaced.Then it did it again and a few more times, each time farther downriver.I like to think it was a Gangetic dolphin, partly because, althoughthey are now so rare, it really might have been (it was behaving like one),but just as much because I think they are such amazing creatures that Iwould like to think I have seen one. Living in the murk of a river so fullof silt, they are nearly blind and have to rely on echo-location to findtheir way about and to find the fish they eat. The silt also makes themdifficult to see, which is why so little is known about them.I turned to Ajahn Sucitto to point out my discovery, but he wasn’tinterested; all I got was a grunt.A J A H N S U C I T T OThat interminable bridge. “Hey, here’s the bridge already,” chirped themind. “Patna’s just over the other side—nearly there!” What otherside—for the first hour, we didn’t even get to the river. By the time theshimmering goddess appeared way below us, everything in me was dissolvingand bobbing together—the shaking legs, the breath, and themantra, driven onward by a flagging will. Mother Ganga was flowingeffortlessly and timelessly east, west to east, the way in which the earth’sturning creates our time. Boats rocked peacefully in her jewelledhands—not onward but on, borne on the ceaseless tide. Staggeringonward—onward to what? But still: “Better not stop now; at least gethalfway over...then we’ll have a rest.”Halfway along that uncaring treadmill was the stop. We were midwaybetween the banks. “Stop”—I rolled the delicious word around mymouth, savouring it like water-ice. Get the bag off ... sit down on thepavement beside the lane. Here at the intersection of time with thetimeless: Buddha puja. We laid down mats, set our Buddha images onthe lower step of the parapet in front of us, and offered incense to theAwakened One. Offered it also to Mother Ganga and the eternal1 7 5