A Rohatsu Meditation

A Rohatsu Meditation

James Ishmael Ford

Zen priest Tom Hawkins once wrote about his pilgrimage to Buddhist India. It’s been a while now. But one passage particularly caught me. And even though it’s been some years, it comes to mind every now and again.

Especially today, Rohatsu, the date we mark out to recall the Buddha’s awakening. Tom wrote:

We have arrived in Bodghaya. Thousands of other pilgrims, us, and then two thousand Tibetan monastics for a special gathering. Beyond words to be at the bodhi tree in the evening with such a crowd. And to make offerings and devotional gestures. Yet, even in Buddha’s enlightenment place, there’s the shadow side. Two of our group had their shoes stolen, I fended off a pickpocket whole we were performing our bows, and a maroon robed ‘monk’ pulled a scam. We saw him tallying up his earnings later as we passed a shop in town….

I was really taken with this.

For me it sings into the heart of our lives. Here we are, human beings, hairless apes with a penchant for the violent and astonishingly self-serving. And, at the same time, just a little space from the angels, our own dreaming into reality wildly wonderful human possibilities.

And. Tonight. Here we are, smelly, noisy, grasping, and sweet, kind, generous; even onto death.

Rohatsu. The day the world awakened.

For me, as I read Tom’s words, I felt my heart swell with the song of humanity, the low and the high, and within it the great reconciliation. All of it one.

This has not been a good year. And. You know, looking at us as we lurk in the shade of the Bodhi tree, it’s not hard to see us all monkeys scrambling and squabbling.

But then there’s this awakening thing.

With the gift of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, and of course, the activity of our brains, letting go of the clinging that usually comes with these things opens us a passing strange joy. Itself endless stretching from before time and past all naming.

Rohatsu.

And, of course, of course. Always back to monkey.

I particularly think of that “monk” counting his ill-gotten gain.

And I see a little hint of recognition. On the Zen way, an image we’d not uncommonly use for wisdom.

The monkey with the beggar’s bowl.

Me. And, of course, you.

The ill-gotten gain, our life’s dream.

Awakening.

Rohatsu.

Such foolishness.

Such joy.

All one.