Amit Sheth wrote this on November 8, 2008 from his home him Mumbai, India. Mr. Sheth is a MALA Santa Fe Low Residency GI.
Sometime ago I bought an antique stone lamp.
I installed the lamp in an aesthetically pleasing and visually accessible location in our garden instead of a corner sheltered from the wind.
And now I find that the wind and the lamp continuous play games with one another. Often the wind gets the better of the lamp.
But lighting the lamp it is an absolute delight. It needs almost 2 litres of oil and setting up the dozens of wicks, takes upto 45 minutes of concentrated focus.
Once lit, it mesmerises me and I can sit on the swing nearby, for hours and stare at it.
I bought it a long time ago but it’s only now, suddenly, that it has caught my son Aryan’s fancy.
This Diwali was the first occasion when he took it upon himself to set it up and light it.
With great attention and precision, he set about filling the oil, checking the oil levels, and then precisely placing the wicks. He even walked a couple of kilometres to the store to buy a proper long necked lighter because he realised that it’s hard to light the wicks with conventional matchsticks or a cigarette lighter.
I was impressed with his determination to get it right. He set it up for two evenings in a row.
Last night as we were driving home after having dinner at a restaurant, he told me, “Dad I was again trying to light the lamp today, but it was so windy. After I finished, a strong wind came and extinguished everything.”
“Aryan, there is a Zen story,” I told him. “Two young Zen students were walking on a street and in the distance, they saw a flag.
One of them said to the other, “Look, the flag is moving.”
“No,” said the other, “the wind is moving.”
The Zen master who happened to be nearby heard them and said, “No. Nether the flag is moving, nor the wind is moving. It’s the mind that’s moving.”
I was in the car, with Aryan and Namrata and Neepa as I narrated this story.
Namrata spoke up and said, “Dad what’s with this Zen story? It’s just a complicated way of explaining the obvious. Aryan, when we want to buy a particular model of a car we suddenly start noticing that car on the road everywhere. That’s how our mind works. The breeze is always there but we don’t notice it until we start to light a lamp. Dad, why can’t you make things simple?”
Then, they all laughed at my expense.
It was a happy moment.
And in the sound of that happy spontaneous laughter, I suddenly noticed all my blessings.
