S Sorrensen
Evans Head. Friday, 10.30am
I’m impressed that there are some kids fishing just upriver from me.
I would have thought the ever-shortening attention span that contemporary culture cultivates would have made fishing a most unattractive option for a kid on school holidays.
Skateboarding through the crowded main street – now that would be fun.
You could dodge around the rainbow tide of families that floods the footpath: bright swimwear and even brighter zinc face paint, blue boogie boards and pink Slurpies, Dad in an I love beer t-shirt shouting hurry-up instructions to a crying youngest in hi-vis yellow water wings. Yeah, fun.
You could swerve past older residents walking in pairs. They react a few seconds after you pass from behind, those old synapses taking some time to register the fright. These older folk, retired from the farm after years of kids and tractors, droughts and floods, hobble arm-in-arm – a painful amble despite the therapeutic stockings and cane – to the chemist.
Yes, that would be fun. And I’m sure some kids are doing that right now.
But here, at the river, we fish.
The three kids – two boys and a girl – sit quietly on the river bank, rods slightly bent to the tide, and gaze at the water. They hardly even talk. For minutes and minutes, just sitting.
I try to remember how it felt to be a child; to think like a child; to have my mind free from the endless recycling of the same thoughts over and over again.
It’s a beautiful day. I feel the outgoing tide shiver through my line. I wonder if the bait is still there. I wonder if there are any fish left in this river. Bloody overfishing. Bloody ocean acidification. Bloody idiots who…
No. There I go. Stop.
Okay, just let the thoughts flow through, like the river. Be like the kids. It’s meditation, I guess.
By the time Buddhism reached Japan from Nepal after an 800 year slog via India and Southeast Asia, it had morphed into Zen. In the 13th century, the Eihei Dogen in Japan developed Soto Zen. This mob’s main gig was just sitting. Like the kids and I are doing now. No gods, smartphones, student debt or terrorist threat – just sitting.
So we sit. Fishing.
Nothing disturbs us – not even a nibble. A pelican does a perfect landing near the sandbank; two young men paddle a kayak upstream, stroking in perfect unison; above us, a plane flies south and the sun moves behind a cloud.
A boat festooned with fishing rods drifts backwards towards the river mouth. A bloke repeatedly pulls at the outboard motor. The motor responds with a grunt but refuses to start.
I can’t believe how many rods this bloke has. He must have twelve rods placed in holders around the boat, each hanging over the water, ready to go.
One of the fisher kids points at the boat drifting out to sea as the man pumps at the motor. They laugh. I grin too (despite this bloke’s dire situation).
The practice of just sitting is called shikantaza. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, of course, but I like the rhythm of that word (four syllables of equal stress) and the lovely clatter of consonants when you say it.
Desperate, the boatie pulls a phone from his pocket.
Fishing (or shikantaza) is about objectless meditation; about just being alive for a bit, not distracted by the need to achieve, share or record. Just sitting. Getting behind the clouds to see the sky; past the noise to hear the music.
What a wonderful meditation it is – it’s real life, and no-one gets hurt. Not even the fish. (Okay, maybe the boatie…)
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