Meditation and Place
I don’t often stop at this third seat. It is the closest to home, so I’m usually tempted to keep walking. But when I do sit here, I find myself looking at the water lilies growing in this particular lake.
Or perhaps they are lotus flowers?
Why does that matter?
Partly because Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful image of the lotus growing from mud has stayed with me. The lotus needs the mud to grow, and he uses this relationship to help explain ideas such as no-self and Interbeing. But that isn’t what occupies my mind when I sit here.
Instead, I find myself transported back to the beginning of my own meditation practice.
When I first learned to meditate, one of the suggestions was to imagine a favourite place where I felt safe and peaceful. For me, there was only one obvious choice: Swayambhu, the great Buddhist stupa and temple complex overlooking Kathmandu.
I first visited Swayambhu in 1983.
According to the traditional legend, Kathmandu Valley was once a great lake. The Bodhisattva Manjushri is said to have opened the gorge at Chobar with his sword, allowing the water to drain. The sacred lotus associated with Swayambhu is part of this ancient story, eventually becoming the sacred site on Swayambhu Hill.
Whether we approach the story as history, legend or spiritual tradition, Swayambhu became a very real place of peace for me.
I have returned to Kathmandu many times since that first visit, and even now Swayambhu is always the first place I want to visit.
So when I sit beside this little lake and look at the flowers, I don’t necessarily think about lotus flowers, mud or Interbeing.
I remember learning to meditate.
Then I remember Swayambhu.
I remember it as a place where I first learned what it felt like to be still.
And then I get up and continue my walk.
Perhaps places don’t actually give us peace.
Perhaps they simply help us recognise a peace we have learned to carry with us.
Tanka
water lilies bloom
old memories drift with them
Swayambhu returns
a place I carried within
long before I knew why