Fruits of the Practice

I walked down to the park this afternoon without a specific plan, just to be out in the day.

I decided to sit for a while, and after considering a park bench or a picnic table, thought that I would rather be near the water. I found a place with some large rocks along the creek and picked the flattest one to sit on, which happened to be right by the water.

Sunlight was streaming through the trees and the rock and water running past were brightly lit.

As I settled in, I noticed a water strider on the surface, then several more. As they moved, clusters of fingertip sized shadow dots moved across the brown sand bottom beneath them. The convex dimples of the water’s surface where the striders’ legs rested refracted the light away, like a lens.

The striders ride on their front and back legs, which are supported by the surface tension of the water, with the back legs farther apart than the front. With their middle legs, they row. The shadow patterns on the creek bottom abstracted this into four dark circles that moved as a unit, and two smaller circles, since the paddling legs have less surface contact, moving back and forth as the strider above moved across the water.

As if to show the opposite optic effect, bubbles float by. Their concave surface focuses the light, creating bright dots of concentrated light, a sort of reverse shadow on the sand.

The creek runs up against a slanted log, then burbles over the log and through a gap between two rocks. The bubbles all burst as the water under them accelerates toward the gap. The stream reflects off the bankside rock and lifts up in a bulge, surface as smooth as melted glass, then plunges into the pool below, filling it with new bubbles that spread out and continue downstream.

Feeling complete calm, I close my eyes and breathe. Each time I open my eyes there’s a different painting of light and shadow before me – sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic. I think about the ever changing nature of things. The creek flows, the sun moves across the sky, the light and shadows are in constant motion.

I am happy to be here, to be able to sit amidst the energy of the earth in this spot as an hour passes by. I think it’s a sign of the fruits of practice – physically, that I can sit cross-legged on a rock by the creek for an hour, and mentally, that I can sit on a rock by the creek for an hour and feel even more interested and fascinated when I arise to go home as when I first sat down.