How to Extinguish a Fire.
Smokey Sun in the afternoon Sacramento Sky
Photo © [Khalsa Panth]
California is on fire. Blazing wildfires numbering in the thousands have scorched much of the state. A smoky haze lingers in the sky turning the sun blood red. Sparked by lightening in June 2008, several hundred fires continue to rage well into July. A natural phenomenon beneficial to forests and the growth of new trees, fire threatens dwellings which encroach deep the wilderness. One such dwelling which has been ravaged by flames is the Zen Center located at the Tassajara Hotsprings.
This is an old neighborhood of mine. Many of my friends and family still reside in homes on the edge of the Los Padres National Forest, where a fire which has consumed 90,000 acres burns steadily closer. We woke this morning to clearing skies, knowing the cooling breeze responsible would be fanning flames elsewhere.
This fire holds particular interest for me not only because of my family in the area, but because 31 years ago when a resident, fire fighters lit a backfire from my one time property line at the edge of the wilderness to protect civilization from advancing flames of the 1977 Marble Cone fire. Deep in the wilderness those flames ravaged the Zen Mountain Center. Of five monks who remained to greet the 2008 inferno when the Zen Center evacuated earlier this week, one is younger than my memories of that time. He has expressed feelings very similar to what I also experienced so long ago. Facing fire is a means of burning away the underbrush and debris of the mind encouraging spiritual clarity, and teaches much about desire, attachment and detachment, concepts shared by both Buddhism and Sikhism.
Neighboring Sikhs who helped the Zen monks to rebuild their wilderness retreat claimed by the 1977 Marble Cone Fire, also introduced me to Guru Granth Sahib and to naam - meditation on God's name, a life altering experience that is still with me.
Guru Nanak wrote of fire:
”Gur miliai sukh paaeeai agan marai gun maahi ||1||
Meeting with the Guru, peace is found. The fire is extinguished in His Glorious Praises…
Chaarae agan nivaar mar guramukh har jal paae||
The Gurmukh puts out the four fires, with the Water of the Lord's Name.” SGGS||21-22
Comments
That is a great story! These fires are scary, but it’s wonderful to hear of other ways to look at them.
Wow.
This was a very powerful post.
I love how your mind works. (And I do wish they could get the fires out…fast!)
What a unique, metaphorical perspective! Definitely a mind provoking post.
Peace and safety to your friends and family in that area.
I grew up on the edge of the Great Plains, where the prairie renews itself by burning. Very much the same concept, except that homes and lives were not meant to be a part of it.
I’m reminded of how many people I have heard say, even after losing everything in a fire, that it was one of the best things that could have happened to them, that they now live in a way they would never have dreamed possible before.
In the eighty’s myself and a few of the local Sikhs from Carmel Valley went to The Zen Center at at Tassajara Hot Springs to help rebuild after floods had damaged some of the out buildings. We were able to provide much needed skills while having a good time. Let it never be said that Zen monks, not to mention the head roshis, don’t know how to have good time. We had a shared respect and likeminded sense of awareness and humor that made working together a spiritual as well as a material project.
Fires as an effective tool of uncluttering. A most helpful way of looking at the good in what appears horrendous.
Compelling thoughts on fire. My father’s apartment recently burnt completely down. He lost everything and miraculously survived. It was caused by rain or lightning that disrupted his breaker box. The firefighters called it ‘An act of God’.
His life is completely different now, the tragedy has turned into an opportunity for rebirth and a fresh new outlook on life. It made me realize that we accumulate so many things during life and remain attached to them often until death. That horrible fire is the best thing that has happened to my father in years.
Vaheguru ji ka khalsa
Vaheguru ji ki fateh!
Oh, such memories.
Although I grew up in Quebec making chapattis and naan and the like, I learned the art of Western bread baking from The Tassajara Bread Book! I haven’t thought about that brown paperback – if I recall correctly – for years and years.
I’ve been in earthquakes and floods and windstorms – and a homicidal pogrom – but never in a fire (unless you count the fire during the pogrom, but that really wasn’t my house and my stuff, although it did include the bodies of my most beloved family members.) Writing that, I realise I have been thgrough a fire. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. I need to think about that; how it butny away so much STUFF in my life. Vaheguru brings realisation to us in the strangest ways…[That last - starting with unless you count... was written while proofreading this. Now I continue with what I first wrote]
A few years ago, however, we did manage to lose all our material possessions except four pieces of luggage and our parrot. It was surprising to me that, although the loss of all my original textile artwork and many mementoes was hard to take, on the whole, being rid of all that STUFF was a great relief.
Now, of course, we’ve again accumulated STUFF. And again its heaviness is oppressive.
*singing*”…When will we ever learn,
When will we ever learn?”
(I thought I left this comment, but it seems to have been lost. Luckily I copied it)
Vaheguru ji ka khalsa
Vaheguru ji ki fateh!
Oh, such memories.
Although I grew up in Quebec making chapattis and naan and the like, I learned the art of Western bread baking from The Tassajara Bread Book! I haven’t thought about that brown paperback – if I recall correctly – for years and years.
I’ve been in earthquakes and floods and windstorms – and a homicidal pogrom – but never in a fire (unless you count the fire during the pogrom, but that really wasn’t my house and my stuff, although it did include the bodies of my most beloved family members.) Writing that, I realise I have been thgrough a fire. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. I need to think about that; how it butny away so much STUFF in my life. Vaheguru brings realisation to us in the strangest ways…[That last - starting with unless you count... was written while proofreading this. Now I continue with what I first wrote]
A few years ago, however, we did manage to lose all our material possessions except four pieces of luggage and our parrot. It was surprising to me that, although the loss of all my original textile artwork and many mementoes was hard to take, on the whole, being rid of all that STUFF was a great relief.
Now, of course, we’ve again accumulated STUFF. And again its heaviness is oppressive.
*singing*”…When will we ever learn,
When will we ever learn?”
I’ve had an interesting summer. I originally left home for three days and haven’t been back in about 6 weeks. While I don’t have to stress over losing stuff it’s all there, just in no big hurry to go home and take care of it all either
I didn’t bring much with me. It’s been a great lesson on how little we really need individually to get by, when willing to share.
I’m sorry to hear about your lost textiles. We get so attached and Stuff (jyam) just has this way of disappearing one way or the other. I once stitched a set of cushions spending countless hours shopping for just the right fabric and sewing on the trimming by hand, and assembling the pieces of wicker I made them for in our bird room. My kids promptly wore out both the cushions and the wicker. Nearly all the birds died within days of each other from unknown causes. Since then I’ve realized life is continuingly temporary. Love (naam) is all we have that endures.