Watermelon Koan
The following story was written in 2012 during a phase of my life when I decided to walk 2,000 miles across the United States. These words reflect a state of mind that has long passed in my life. But I have always loved the sentiment behind these words which I wish to share alongside a variety of other stories left unwritten and unshared…until now. That journey has continued to haunt me, changing the course of my life in subtle and unimaginable ways. I have no other options except to express, to finally purge myself of these images and thoughts that roam freely through my mind and pester me to share them. Regardless, I hope these stories will be a tiny guiding post along this meandering experience we call life.
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As the days pass on through Texas, I’m finding myself feel more and more free. Pieces of my life that are dissolving away, past actions and mistakes that I’ve done becoming less relevant, demons being slayed by the simple act of walking step by step. But with that comes the price of letting go of beautiful memories of the past and allowing them to be laid to rest. Dreams and desires that once allured my mind as a child are now becoming dull and irrelevant. It’s a hard game to play, this continuous wearing away of the Self. But truly, it is worth the price for spiritual freedom.
I spent three days walking through Hwy 90 from Sandersen to Dryden in complete contemplation. Every day, all I can do was cry and yell. I recall walking uphill, and my mind was running through the scenario of having a family. I imagined the blessful experience of seeing the birth my child, of raising my child, teaching him or her about the world, about life. Then I imagined, what if my child were born with a disability? Born with a mental disorder, or physical handicapped? I saw myself holding my child’s hand to walk upstairs, and to watch my child stumble and fall. And I wept. Afterwards, I imagined my child dying prematurely, to be at his or her grave. And to say to myself, “I did the best that I could.”
That in the end, all we can really do is our best.
In another moment in time, I was walking passed a bridge. The night before, a truck driver had had a truck malfunction and needed to use my cell phone. In exchange, he gave me a large, delicious watermelon (I think it broke my cart, it was so heavy!). So the next day, I took that watermelon beneath that bridge and carved pieces out of it to eat. As I began eating, I started getting very focused on my food. And I felt more sensitive to what was going around me.
Beneath the bridge, there came a pungent odor of a decaying sheep. Flies began buzzing in swarms around the cut watermelon pieces and discarded rind. Above me, I saw an enormous flock of tiny birds criss-crossing below the bridge, as if they were confused and running in circles. And I began feeling.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the image of a baby boy.
Beautiful. Sweet. Serene.
Then I saw him grow, move through the age of the toddler.
Young. Precocious. Sensitive. Alive.
Over time, the boy slowly grew into adolescence, maturing into his sexuality.
Confused. Sad. Hurt.
Onward to his teens.
Rebellious. Angry. Fighting.
Slowly, he became a young man, coming to terms with his mortal life.
Brisk. Energetic. Virile.
As time goes on, he faces the challenges of a mortal life.
Loss. Depression. Fallen.
And then he becomes old, his friends and family have passed on, and he can only look back on his life before he too enters the grave. I wept.
And then I saw in my mind, an elderly man, filled with hope. With dreams. He sees the world with brightness, curiosity. In his heart, there is still a baby boy who wonders without fear or disappointment. At his death bed, he crawls into the covers of the unknown as if napping, forever. My heart shined.
In a flash of light, I watched as the baby boy and the elderly man merged. As though, in all beings, beast or man, there lies within both youth and age. Wisdom and foolishness. Confusion and truth. As though, in every infant, therein is programmed the fruit of an entire lifetime until death. And within everyone faced before the Executioner’s sword, therein lives a baby. We are all fated to see the darkness within the grave, the blade that renders flesh and bone to dust. Yet from dust comes life anew. From the blade arises the myriad creatures of the world.
And something snapped in my mind. Suddenly, I could only laugh. And weep. Simultaneously. I couldn’t tell if I was sad or happy. They seemed to be the same thing as tears rolled down my cheek while laughter roared through my body.
How funny, this universe we live in.
How sad, this universe we live in.
Was there much of a difference? In every moment, in every being, in every piece of bark, rock, cup of water, or flower, therein lies the joke. The eternal joke.
I began seeing the beauty in the flies irritating my face and my arms as they landed on my body. They didn’t have much long to live, only days. For them, a moment of respite besides a pool of sweat and watermelon juice was their heaven. Even as I was batting them off fiercely, this was their good luck. This was their good fortune. I wondered how many of their brothers and sisters never even made it passed the larval life, doomed to an early death without knowing the momentary joys of flight and procreation.
And I smelt the corpse of the sheep, with all the strength of my lungs, its bloated, odorous body swollen from the humidity. Perhaps it had lived a good life, eating delicious grass along the fields with its family, drinking waters from the rain. I may be feeling the intensity of nausea, but for the sheep, maybe its death was good. It had completed its life, whatever mission it is that a sheep has on Earth. To provide wool for its keeper? To give birth to its baby, raise it and teach it to eat and sleep? To finally surrender and satiate the carnal desire of the coyotes and wolves that have hunted it all its life?
What was there to feel sorrow for? What happens is what happens. Death is constant, necessary. It’s built into the nature of our universe. Even if we could program our genetic code to provide us eternal physical life, eventually the stars die and the worlds become frozen. Perhaps courage is to watch the world burn and continue on.
Continue eating.
Continue sleeping.
Continue giving.
Loving.
Laughing.
And let the tears run to bathe the world in love.
