Wednesday, September 24, 2014

…AND THE BIRDS KEPT SILENT


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.

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