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extraORDINARY
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Created: 01/22/09
Last Edited: 01/23/09
Views: 4368
Appreciations: 170
Comments: 27
Project featured on 6/23/09
Fields: Photography
From: james hervey's Portfolio
Tibetan OM
extra
ORDINARY
"Did The Buddha ever sulk Daddy?"
It was another hot sunny day in the Nubra valley. I do not know
whether I was smiling beforehand, but as we rode along through the
desertscape Felix's voice from behind made me aware that I now was.
For how long had I wanted to take him away from his routine and into
a world of seeming emptiness. The occasion presented itself at a given
time, and it was seized.
How it may, or may not be that in the beginning beings found
themselves carrying the traveling bag of experience is indeed a
mystery. One worthy of inquiry and search. What is less vague is that
we all carry such a bag, and indeed it is the only thing with which
one is born into, and with which one will leave, this life. Again and
again. In this sense we are all equal.
A child's bag is refreshingly light. Rarely locked and even
unwatched, caring only slightly what goes in and out. It becomes a
vessel of extreme interest, if conditions allow.
For all his cleverness Man has become more and more concerned
with filling this bag, mending it with wayside patchwork, and most
importantly hoarding what it contains, allowing only a few, if any, a
peek into what lies inside. At some point the fear of what may be
taken outweighs the possibility, even an innate impulse, to give.
At some point grasping the bag becomes more important than what
the bag may contain. With the grasping comes fear and the notion of
ownership. With ownership comes dispossession. Death is called
into take a terrifying form and sadness is added to a sad world.
As a father I find myself too often telling Felix how he should treat
his bag. He has, more than any other person, reminded me that the
manner with which I treat my own bag is sufficient counsel.
Is seems today that experience is spoken of in a way that
automatically assigns superior knowledge to those with more
experience than another. The older one is the more experience one
has and therefore closer to an understanding of what is right and
wrong, what is good and what is bad.
Once experience asks to be repeated and avoided though one loses
the freedom of youthful expression in which struggle is slight or
absent. One gets stuck in the past and what it provided or lacked.
It is at this point that one starts getting old.
Justification of opinion becomes simply the inability of
another to prove the contrary without necessarily furthering
understanding , personal or global.
"The only reason a child is youthful is because they are in discovery,
and as long as you remain in discovery you shall remain youthful"
And so together we took our bags and went away. To there where there
is very little. To there where nothing in the bag would be needed nor
anything need be taken and put into it. To have a bag, recognise it, and
yet be reminded that it need not be clutched; it can be left.
We went to the top of the world.
There is very little on the top of the world. In whichever direction you
choose to look, everything can, so clearly, be seen and heard.
For so long is it covered with cold and white that even the gods, in
their passage, overlooked it. Instead they went south and east and left us
the alpine glory of other himalayan regions. Even when spring comes
and water flows again, all colour seems to reside in a deep blue sky and
the plays of the sun's rise and set.
All around it is brown. Normally a most unassuming colour and yet in
it's insistence one can see great diversity in the colours of the earth. Red,
purple and blue manage to find place among rock and sand, and
what initially seems a monotonous landscape actually plays host to all
colours.
Greens sit beautifully along river banks and through their leaves a
breeze sings a gentle song of a long awaited summer. An even
greater blue than the deep sky found its way
into the lakes, accompanied by emerald and turquoise, and together,
under passing clouds of white, they sparkle in changing light.
Otherwise the days are brown and like many browns ask to remain
anonymous. In a brown land we must too be brown. Anonymous
and humble. Awkward request when coming from a land where one
must, it seem, be seen. An offer of eternity in exchange for 15
minutes. An invitation to be nothing save ordinary.
Extra Ordinary.
"Yes Lix, I suppose Lord Buddha did sulk. Or rather Prince
Siddhartha did - it was precisely dissatisfaction that urged the young
prince to go out into the world and find out why!"
It pleases me greatly that my son has developed an interest in the life
and teachings of a truly great man. Amongst all the voices vying for
his young heart and purse he will be accompanied by advice that will
outlast all others; a more long lasting and beneficial direction, that he
will be able to inquire into in his own time.
A little silence later: "Look Daddy!"
Camouflaged under a midday sun in a desert landscape, undisturbed
on a rock wall by the road side, a beautiful yellow bird sat.
He had seen it, and allowed me see something that I was unaware of.
Had he had his bag and its preoccupations with him, I doubt they
would have ever met in that beautiful moment.
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