Scattering

I have just returned from the ceremony of Scattering the Ashes of Dr Sally Masheder at the Cairn above The Maenllwyd. Before the Scattering we held a brief ceremony of chants and prayers chosen in her last days by Sally herself and I gave this short Teisho:

I have been wondering why Sally should have chosen The Maenllwyd as the location for the scattering of her ashes. Perhaps it was because:

Stillness and Time merge in the misted valley
Soft light glittering on dew-faced
Sycamores and birch
Uncultivated fields
Beset with bracken groves and sedge
Where sheep wander
And a vixen once fed cubs in a bank
Among rabbits.

Even the brook lacks music
No heavy rain this week
Yet lawn-grass pushes up
And the compost smells like wine.
The summer chill of the Welsh hills
Is warmed by Rayburn heat
In the bright kitchen,
Coffee on the hob,
Chan Hall clappers signalling
"Come for a meditation!"
Already brewing in the softened air.

I am reminded that once when a great Chan master was dying he said to his sobbing monks around him, "Why are you making such a fuss. I am going nowhere!" And Geshe Damchos Yontan once told me a beautiful Sadhana that seems relevant here.

There once was a yogin hermit who lived in a cave high up above a small village. He did his practice there and sustained his enlightenment. Once a week, some villagers would come and bring him some food, grateful to him for filling the great hills with his presence.

One day he died but the villagers, seeing how he still sat in such deep repose, left him as he was. Occasionally, they returned with incense to visit him. The years passed, his body shrank and decayed, feeding the flies, gradually the skeleton appeared . Time passed, the bones fell apart lying in the cave entrance. In the end all the passing villager could see was a pile of spreading dust.

Then, one year, a flower appeared, grew and bloomed. A wandering yogin passed by and seeing the flower, stopped, explored the cave and began to sit. Once again, the villagers came once a week bringing supplies.

When Sally's ashes are scattered at the cairn, some of them will fall on the growing grass, which the rabbits will eat. The fox will take some of them and the ashes move up the food chain. The sheep will graze along the brook taking some more and, in course of time, these may end indeed in some of ourselves or in our coats. Some will end in the bodies of mice discovered by the kites that breed now next door in the big oak. Some will fall in the stream and drift down the Marteg Brook to the River Wye and on past towns and villages to the sea and thus to the ocean. So Sally merges with earth, sky and sea passing on her way.

Sally, thinking of The Maenllwyd, came here for her last journey. The Maenllwyd was in her mind. Thus it is that, whenever you come to visit, Sally will be in your mind. She has not gone anywhere. Stillness and Time merge in the softened air.

Chuan deng Jing Di

15 August. 2010