The Hiss of Light: A Haibun

1994 

I attend my first Western Zen Buddhist retreat at Maenllwyd. The small Welsh farmhouse stands on a hillside at the end of a rough track below a narrow wooded valley, which leads up to a bare horizon. It just sits there, with no electricity, amidst the fields of sheep, aloof and barely visible from the straggly village some way below. The eastern horizon offers wide skies for the sunrise and a distant view of hills across the valley. A clear night sky becomes a ‘river of stars’. Inside, the firelight and Tilley lamps bring a flickering glow to the low beams.

tea poured into mugs,
steam rises –
the hiss of light 

The teacher welcomes us and asked us why we have come, what are we looking for? 

I had very recently been confronted by the traumatic fact that my sister, Lucy Partington, had been abducted, raped, tortured and murdered by Frederick and Rosemary West. She had been missing for twenty years. Lucy was one of twelve ‘victims’. I had just wrapped her bones in response to a dream. 

when I kissed your skull
the dome of the sky
took root in my heart

Someone says he is looking for the ultimate reality. That resonates. Maybe I had tasted this place in the first dream when Lucy spoke to me from a water meadow shortly after her ‘disappearance’ in 1973. The words ‘the peace that passeth understanding’ came to mind. Lucy’s words: 

‘if you sit very still
you can hear
the sun move’ 

I begin to learn how to sit very still, how to meditate. I ‘took refuge’ in 1995 with the visiting Chan Master Shengyen. My Dharma name is Guo Guang, Fruit of Light. Lucy’s name is also rooted in light from the Latin lux, lucis – light. 

1995 

fingernails
full of clawed earth –
the enormity of a vow 

on a distant bank
foxes with cubs
playing in the sun 

1997 

tears and snot
drip from my chin -
how many bowlfuls?

severed pine branch
a wound that alters,
the sway of it all 

1998 

weeding:
docks, thistles, nettles
making space 

2000 

Chan Master Shengyen’s words to me: ‘Just know that your pain is relieving the pain of others’. 

through this body
the depth of suffering
suddenly realised 

2004 

trees burdened with snow
I offer you
the springing of the branch 

2019 

Sleeping on a platform in the Chan Hall at a seven-day silent retreat at Maenllwyd. It is 4.30 a.m. 

Clack! … Clack! 

The sound of wooden clappers approaching across the yard wakes us.

fire crackles
flickering of wicks
the smell of paraffin 

morning exercises
in the dark yard
the hoot of an owl 

On the third day I am time-keeping. My hip becomes intensely painful. Silently I ask, ‘Please tell me what you need, you are part of me?’ An answer comes: ‘Less pressure’. I adjust my posture. There is a shift from claustrophobia to release. Many thoughts, many sufferings arise. I strike the gong to end the session. 

rising sun
on the rim of the valley
golden sheep 

scraping frost from windscreens
the yard empties –
old lamp on a sill