Sometimes my zafu (meditation pillow) is a row boat. My mind is a still, dark, mirror-like lake on which I float. My practice is my fishing tackle and my concentration is my line. I watch it where it meets the water. It makes small rings on the water that roll away with each breath I take.
I am content.
Catching thought-fish is not really the point. It is not the object of meditation. I am here to fish. To sit in my zafu-boat, to hold my Zebco-practice correctly, and watch my concentration-line make breath-rings in the mind-water.
Fish are incidental.
Oh but this lake is FULL of aquatic wildlife. Even if I put an empty hook into the water, I will catch something. I can’t help it. With this lake, I could catch a rainbow trout, perch, or blue gill, but I could just as well catch a salmon, a whale, a frog, newt, old boot or even a penguin (wearing old boots). In this lake, any wildlife will strike at bait when hungry.
As I watch my line, I can see something bumping against and mouthing my bait. I don’t yet know what it is down there but I feel the pole jerking and see non-rhythmic "V's"on the surface of the water.
They are not caused by my breathing.
Then, a strike! Something down there is pulling at my line of concentration. There is a force at the end of my line changing the tension of my tackle. Something small may only run in circles, unable to bend my Zebco or stress my line. Something larger may drag line from my spin cast reel if the tension is too low, causing my rod to jump wildly or bend the pole down to the surface of the lake.
Oh, yes. It has my attention and I begin to reel.
Sometimes I will bring what ever it is up without much fight and little effort on my part. Sometimes it takes more time and more sweat. Usually it’s just a matter of a minute or five to bring up whatever is down there, sometimes it may take an hour… or two… or a week… or a year to land my catch. That’s the nice thing about fishing here, I can bring in my boat, go home, go to work, play with my kids and come back later and that fish will probably still be on my line waiting for me when I get back.
Sometimes I get tired, or scared of what I have on my hook. Or sometimes, I have something too big for my tackle or even my boat and something breaks. (Usually my line or rod. I have yet to have my zafu capsize but I won’t say it couldn’t happen.) I know sometimes it’s safer to cut the line. These things happen to even the best of fishers and, when they do, I will not get discouraged. I will not throw down my pole, sell my boat and leave my line to get tangled at the bottom of the lake. These things are just a part of fishing and from these experiences I will learn how to improve my technique.
Crazy days on the boat are still better than crazy days without the boat.
Most of the time though, whatever takes my bait gets landed without major issues. As it comes to the surface I can see its murky outline. Sometimes it jumps and I can see some details as it breaks the still surface trailing sparkles of water behind it. Sometimes it comes up so covered in weeds and debris that I haven’t a clue what I’ve caught until it’s in the boat.
Now it’s here and I am looking directly at it and it is looking directly at me. I see its scales, its eyes, its fins, flippers or the sole of its boot. In other words, I see all the things that make this particular creature different from all the other fish in the lake. I possess it and, in a way, it possesses me or at least the total sum of my attention at this moment.
I remember why I'm here -not to catch fish but simply to fish. The boat, the tackle, the bait, the line, hook, creature on the hook, lake and I, the person fishing, are all connected -we are all a part of Fishing which, on a cushion doing meditation equals nothing, illusion, a fairytale I tell myself about thinking while sitting on a cushion meditating. I do not need to hold on to this thought-creature to gain anything, or to remember this event.
The lake is my mind.
The fish are my thoughts.
They are available to examine closer at a later time if I wish.
I do not need fish or thoughts right now.
Gently, I remove my hook from it’s gasping mouth. I hold it reverently with both hands, and thank it for its lesson. I bow to release it back into the cool and tranquil depths of my mind. As it swims away, I take a deep breath, reset the tackle of my practice and watch the line of my concentration spin out to where it meets the still surface of the lake. As the small rings spread out over its surface in time with my breath,
I am once again content.
I am fishing.
