Hunters and 'victims' of immemorial light ~ Malinda Words

‘Let’s leave something beautiful for others,’ suggested my friend Tharindu Amunugama. What that would be, we didn’t discuss. He was explaining to me a photograph he had sent me; a view from a high point in the Buddhangala Monastic Complex, located deep in the jungles around seven kilometres from Ampara.

Dawn.

He had stayed overnight at the aranyaya, having been drawn there by photographs others had posted. He had been intrigued by photos of Buddhist monks sweeping the premises in the morning. He wanted to capture it all at dawn, which is his preferred light-time, and from angles he believed would best do justice to what he calls ‘the oasis of silence.’ And he did. He didn't anticipate that he would be treated to a discourse on luminosity. He was.

The light, he says, was purely serendipitous.

Tharindu told me that the things that fire our imagination such as the stories we have heard, for example what Mayaranjan had recorded in Digamadulle Arshcharyaya (The magic of Digamadulla) way back in 1957 and that what we have seen get imprinted in our minds.

'So in a way we are hunters looking for those elusive moments. They are timeless in the sense that they have been there for ages and seen by others as well. And yet they are fleeting.’

He reckoned that what he saw that morning would be an everyday sight for the resident hamuduruwo and that it probably lent towards a calming of the mind. Such as it must have for those who came before, dating back to the pre Christian era when the monastery was first built according to the archeological record.

That’s all in the literal domain, but Tharindu knew that it was true metaphorically as well. The light has to be captured at the right time, from the right angle and vantage also comes into play. And then it’s gone. All things are transient. The sun was always there. There have been innumerable mornings but even when they were in fact breathtakingly beautiful, each set of eyes that gazed upon that far-off horizon in the direction of what’s today called Sammanthurai may have drawn different meanings.

Those eyes are gone now. As will go the eyes that have helped capture, temporarily, the serendipity. Tomorrow, other hunters of light may also obtain insights that help unscramble eternal verities less tangible.

I haven’t been to Buddhangala, Ampara. I plan to go there one day.

Right now, seated in a coffee shop in Philadelphia, I can still relate to what Tharindu said. Sometimes the dawn is as the word describes. Light is light, so to speak. Buddhangala is in Ampara. And yet I find that a few words uttered by a kindred spirit have unlocked a fissure in the time continuum, rendered distance meaningless, unscrambled a photograph, diffused captured light and re-integrated metaphorical strands. Enlightenment comes in layers of unequal width, sometimes so intertwined that it resists unraveling, but sometimes making us stop and think of dawn, light, meditation, capture, share and immutability in ways we hadn’t thought possible.

There are hunters among us. Some travel far and don’t care about things such as accommodation; they just want to be there when light arrives. Light does arrive or, put another way, light there always is. Dawn makes it feel more real because we know that it emerges from night and therefore lends to the notion of there being an ‘elusive moment,’ that which wasn’t there before and will be gone almost immediately. That light can be captured. That light, thus captured, can fire someone’s imagination enough to prompt a hunt for similar light, similarly elusive moments.

Then there’s light that’s always there, yes, before our very eyes, in the darkest moments, in the heart’s unbearable solitude, in the helplessness of circumstances, the landscapes rubbled by relentless bludgeoning, the euphoria of victory, the abyss of defeat, the first tear conceived by love, a smile that had never materialised before, the almost chance hello that led to a conversation so long that you wonder if it is just a continuation from a different lifetime or of someone else’s thoughts and so, in these and other ways, we create or recognise our own ‘Buddhangala at Dawn.’

What is the beauty we can leave behind, I ask myself. We can hunt and capture elusive moments. We can trap light. We can be pursued by moments which we may never notice because they come camouflaged in everyday clutter and the tyranny of routine. We can be surrounded by light and yet swear by darkness.

The Buddha, in the Pabhassara Sutta or the discourse on luminosity offers some light:

‘Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed run-of-the-mill person doesn't discern that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person — there is no development of the mind. Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind.’ (Anguttara Nikaya)

I don't know what beautiful thing(s) I will leave behind. I don’t know if I can either. But some light fell at a particular time, at a particular angle and was captured in a particular frame from a particular vantage by a particular hunter inspired by something beautiful that some other person or persons had scribbled on his mind. I am a recipient.

We all are. And can be.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 272nd article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

22 November 2023

Hunters and 'victims' of immemorial light

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