The Sun Shines on Both the Deserving and the Undeserving

And so it happens as it so often does in this life—when you come to fully accept where you are, a door opens. I remember the one thing I am sure of: suffering and the end of suffering. Everything else is bait. The way some creatures are born to die within hours, thousands of generations of life coming into being in the raindrop of a single day. If someone asks me how much time passes up here on the crest of the butte under the eternal blue sky, I would not be able to formulate a response. Days. Weeks. Years. Minutes. And yet it is as if only an instant passes, a dragonfly momentarily alighting on one’s shoulder.

Uncle opens his eyes. May all beings have happiness and the tools of happiness, he says. He takes off his sunglasses and wipes them on his robe, the lenses flashing in the sun, a beacon to whatever is coming over the horizon. He puts them back on and stands up. The sky at the end of the sky trembles.

Before turning and heading back down the path, Uncle hands me a rock. The thing is dusty and fits comfortably in my palm. It is nondescript in every way. I wonder why he chooses this one. I know it is pointless to wonder. The Buddha says that in the moment of His enlightenment, He sees the very source from which life originates, but He does not address it in His teachings, as mankind often gets sidetracked by such fruitless questions as where we come from and why we exist. Not everything needs an answer. We must accept that some things just are. The sun shines on both the deserving and the undeserving equally.

I look at the options around me, the ovoo like a field of people. One of them catches my eye. The way it seems to stand in the shadow of another that is just off to its right, together the two ovoo like twin stars only one of them is taller and with more prayer flags woven among its stones, the other less robust. I place my rock on the smaller ovoo. Grow strong, little brother, I think. Your day is coming.

The walk down the butte is easier.