Settling down into my office chair...there's no one here. I gaze through the window at the silent winter storm brewing outside... trees alone stand like lonely sentries, their branches dusted white by the frivolous wind. A flock of birds breaks formation. It’s every bird for himself. Disoriented ... they search blindly for a spot of refuge, their instincts numbed by the blistering cold. All this happens noiselessly. My eyes absorbed, my mind rendered dormant and uncomprehending, I slip into deep oblivion...
In the distance, I hear a temple bell. The sound of water running over stones. A crow caws into the emptiness. And then another. And another. The temple bell rings again. It reverberates with a deeper tone and my feet tremble beneath me. My eyes open to a dark room bathed in the warm glow of a fireplace. Shadows dance across the stone walls of this small, cozy hut. I rise from my wooden chair, gathering my robes around me, my feet caressed by the warm rush mats as I walk towards the entrance of my home.
A crisp morning breeze greets me. Dawn has just broken over the horizon. It is time for prayer. My hut sits atop a hill. From here I can see the entire expanse of this Monastery in the mountains. In the center, a great stone courtyard houses the main temple. On either side, two smaller temples and the temple building. An old monk, bare-shouldered, in maroon robes, ambles towards the temple. Weeping cherry trees in bloom rustle their swooping branches. The wind strews blossoms across the stone floor as an offering.
Something feels different. My body - it feels changed; somehow leaner, somehow lighter, more flexible, more at ease. My mind too is silent. My attention is relaxed, open and invites in experience without favor, without judgment, without expectation. My age is unknown to me, but I sense I have lived a while. I am a simple monk, a peaceful man, an entirely different man. And yet I feel I am the same - The same as I have always been and the same as I will always be.
My feet dressed in wooden slippers carefully descend the steep stone steps roughly hewn into the hill side. The sharp click-clack echoes eternally through the morning air. The temple bell rings again, rising me from my reverie...
My eyes open to the snow squalls outside the office window. The monk is no more. I reflect on him fondly and his life that I lived. Now, here I am again, in the life of this man. I reflect on him fondly too.
Now falling still again, my gaze returns to the silent world outside, my heart brimming with the emptiness of it all...
