One day,
my daughter Stefanie came home with a cage: it contained four parakeets. She
had been downtown and felt compassion for the birds, and bought them. We
decided to hang the cage under a tree in the small garden I have at the back of
the house. Anytime you went into the garden you could hear the parakeets
chirping away.
There was
a table next to the tree, and we would always sit on the chairs around it.
Javier would always sit there whenever we came home and I had to change clothes
or do something else. He would wait there for me smoking a cigarette or meditating.
I guess at
the time he must have been practicing Dorje Sempa. He realized that whenever he
started reciting the one hundred syllable mantra, the parakeets hushed and kept
silent until he finished the meditation. As soon as he dedicated merit, they
would resume their chirping.
He told me
this and at first I didn’t believe him. The next time I stayed with him and he
started a meditation. The parakeets went mum. I witnessed they kept silent
until he finished and dedicated merit.
I still
wonder what could have happened: either meditation sends mind waves and the
birds get them; or the sound of the mantra is so powerful it stuns them.
Change is
constant in Samsara. Now my daughter lives in Texas and she gave away the
parakeets when she left. But the tree is still there, and whenever I sit under
it, I remember Javier meditating while four parakeets kept silent.
