Buddha of Birds

We have to work very hard to find our true natures. Doing things that we may find "unnatural" to become our natural selves. We see people like Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, many other truly amazing people, whose truly amazing accomplishment is to become truly themselves, and to see the presence of the divine which not only surrounds us, it's ... everything.

We seem to need to work very hard to see what's right of us.

And so we come to the Buddha of Birds.

Now, let's be completely honest, it "said" with words, nothing. What I am reporting here as what the bird "said" is, of course, what I imagined hearing in my head. But what it "said" was very clear to me at the time, so that's where we are.

Anyway, the bird flies in and sits down on a sprinkler head, in my back garden. And just sits there. Doesn't sing, doesn't preen itself, it ... just sits. Looks around, but basically... sits.

"Why did you sit there?" I imagine asking the bird.

"Because that's where I am," it seems to tell me.

It sits there for a while, then flaps off to do what, I have no idea. Presently it flaps back, but to a different sprinkler head. Where it just sits.

"Why did you sit there, this time?" I imagine asking the bird.

"Because, now, that's where I am," it seems to tell me.

And just... sits.

This is clearly the Buddha of Birds. Well, all birds are, truthfully, but yesterday this particular one seemed to have a dharma teaching for me. Being the Buddha of Birds, and all.

But what's it's lesson?

I'm just sitting. Here. Because here's where I am, right now. It goes off and does what it does, and then sits somewhere else. Where it just sits; and sits there, because that's where it is, at the moment.

The Ram Dass of birds. Be here, now, because now is when it is and here is where you are.

A dharma lesson for all of us. MSers may have a different list of symptoms, but the same is true for each of us, Disease or No Disease. Now, I could regale you with a list of What's Failing Today and How That's Like Every Day or How It's Different Today. A barrage of "WTF is THAT about" from various nameless and faceless non-entities involved in Official Stuff, the dealing with which can make one hope said non-entities would come down with an incurable disease so they'd know what it feels like, and further to hope that said non-entities suffer as much or more than you do, hoist on their own petards, for making your life miserable. Hoping that the people who made the system that way get their own faces peeled off by their own petards and see what life's like now, gee, I wonder if your face is missing? Best have a five year waiting period, to see if your face is really missing. Just to see. Just to be really really sure that the petard-ripped-off face hasn't grown back. Like they never do, but just in case, we'd better wait, right? Bitter? Moi?

Yes. But the Buddha of Birds isn't bitter. It may cheep loudly at someone or something it doesn't like, or to get attention from one of its comrades, but bitter? The Buddha of the Birds?

Nope. At the moment, it just sits. Because that's what it's doing and that's where it is.

Frankly, it has better things to do than be bitter. It doesn't even cross its mind. It just sits, where it is.

A lesson for all of us.