Essence or Whole?

“If one looks deeply into nature, one can see messages strewn about in every single detail. When your consciousness touches nature’s, the consciousness in nature speaks to you and reveals to you the secrets of an awakened living.” – Bodhi.

On the small wooden table kept outdoors, Bodhi places a bowl of bird food and water daily. The bird food comprises a mix of different types of tiny grains.

Doves and finches feast on the grains from sunrise through sunset. The doves and the finches have very different ways of eating. The finches here are tiny gray birds that resemble hummingbirds at a first glance. They pick grains at jet speed from the bowl, roll them between their tiny beaks in such a skilled fashion that only the inner seed is consumed while the outer husk is dropped. When the finches have eaten and are gone, what is left behind in the bowl is a loose heap of yellow husks.

When the doves eat the same grains, they consume the whole grain–husk and the seed together.

To clean the bird bowl, Bodhi blows into it with his mouth; the lose husks fly off into the air revealing fresh seeds at the bottom of the bird bowl, over which he adds more grains.

Watching the finches and the doves on the outdoor table this afternoon, i had a question in my mind. I asked Bodhi while he was having his lunch, “Baba, are you the finch that picks only the kernels and leaves the husk behind? Or are you the dove that accepts both the husk and the kernel as one Whole?”

Bodhi stopped chewing and closed his eyes in a moment of Self-absorption. “When Mother feeds me just the kernel i eat the kernel alone, when Mother feeds me the whole grain, i eat it whole”, he said in a profound voice that seemed to echo from the center of his Being.

Debdutta (Didi)