Photo by Tina Hensel

Small

By

Bamboo Bill

Most of us have followed the wrong Gods home at some time or another. Reflection upon ones own mind can be paralyzing in as much as enlightening. Freedom becomes something definable in the material sense of the word but indefinable when one couples the “mind” into the question.

Having spent most of this life wondering around inspecting the nuts and bolts of my own existence I have had to draw upon humanity as a frame of reference, namely the American society. Spending a little time on bent knees in your own yard can be one hell of an adventure.

When ones ego grows rapidly and starts to displace the essence of God some pretty strange behavior can manifest. The I begins to be Self Righteous and seeks to dominate the material world around it. This fits nicely into the capitalistic engine that we all seem to fuel. The word BIG becomes the operative word. It has an entire family of words, such as Biggest, best, fastest, swiftest and so on.

What we don’t realize is that we, along with most of our neighbors tend to glorify all the Bigness of our life. Yet as a society we are seemingly void of happiness. The treadmill of having more, consuming more than another eats at our very souls like a slow cancer.

This treadmill provides for bigger government which cuts us deeper so the taxes can be extracted. When you finally see the truth, you either jump into the fire and die happy with all those material possessions or you run to high ground. Once you reach high ground your country, fellow man and big government define you as a misfit.

I had four karate studios that ran full time and I was known as one of the few karate instructors who turned their love for the martial arts into a vocation not just a hobby. As time went along, my ego grew and grew , daily I struggled magnificently to be caption Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise, metaphorically speaking. My body worked well and my mind seemed clear as a mountain stream in mid August. All was well in my BIG life.

Then one day I left it all for reasons that are only clear to me now years later. My ego had gotten to Big, to heavy and therefore I knew I must cast off the material world that I had attached myself to. I spent a few years working on bamboo rods living frugally sometimes on the edge of invisibility. There was a sense of loneliness but at the same time a quite calm entered my life. I delt with the loneliness because I knew it was self imposed. One is born into this life alone and certainly dies alone.

Years after my journey, I met an old time friend and past student. In conversation he said, “Bill you have a little life”. Those words have never left me. This friend of mine is a warrior and has fought many battles that successful self employed people always do. I respect him for the man that he is for the total sacrifice for his family. His life has been hell the past few years and I won’t get into it. He has the Big life that he fights to maintain everyday and I have a Little Life that is relatively simply to maintain. But let me say now, the Small life is not easy, the words simple and easy somehow don’t always equate in our throw away society that is laced with instant gratification.

Now I seek not the big fish, not the holly waters, the big money, the big title, the big toys, the newest gadget or the big house. I seek the small in almost everything I do. I’m happier on this journey of being a pilgrim traveling along the road of life that society would define as a minimalist. It is kind of like realizing that a Zen Koan has no true meaning other than it is a tool to get the Zen student to recognize the foolishness of involving the mind in activities that are meaningless. For some of us once we figured this out we left the temple.

When I was thirty my body was fast, strong with the libido running high and my teeth were all there and white. Time went at a slower pace. Today at 55 my teeth are leaving me at an increasing faster rate and time is traveling faster also. Interesting comparison isn’t it. Life is coming to an end like a stream meandering down through a valley always moving always descending. A blink of the eye and I will begin another journey.

The Small is found everywhere: the red wing Black Bird with its song at dusk, my dogs excitement for the wild nature around her as we walk along a stream, the cry of a mountain lion right before dawn, a trout’s wink before he takes my fly, a crescent moon that reminds me just to smile, a Golden Eagle in flight, the sound of silence embedded in the deep woods, that feel of a plan in my hands, a gentle poem that I wrote so many years ago when read it touches my very own soul as if I read it for the very first time. The small is found in the void of the big and the finger of God is there.