by Roger Mock
Lorre Wyatt wrote this little bi-lingual song called Somos El Barco some years ago. Here’s the first verse and chorus:
The stream sings it to the river,
The river sings it to the sea,
The sea sings it to the boat
That carries you and me.
Somos el barco, somos el mar,
Yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi.
We are the boat, we are the sea,
I sail in you, you sail in me.
I’ve been singing it for years and I realize now that it’s actually a very Buddhist song. The raft is one of the principle archetypes of Buddhism. “We’re all swimming to the other side,” to quote another folk song, although in Mahayana (or big raft) Buddhism, it’s more like we’re rowing together. The Japanese have a name for the “other side” – higan. It’s a translation of the Sanskrit word paramita and literally means to cross over to the other shore. We are on this shore and the Buddhists are very frank about its nature. It’s the place of ignorance and suffering. The Buddhas (there have been more than one) made it across to the “pure land” of enlightenment or Nirvana.
How to get there? You take three vows. You take refuge in the Buddha who showed the way across. You take refuge in the dharma – the raft itself; the teachings of the Buddha. And you take refuge in the sangha – all of us who are on this ship together and are committed to the journey. I sail in you; you sail in me. It’s a simple and beautiful creed, is it not?
I bring all this up because we have just arrived at the Spring Equinox. In Japanese Buddhism it is the feast of Higan, which is also celebrated at the Autumnal Equinox. It’s a time of balance. Day and night are of equal length. Temperatures are temperate. For those who observe Higan it is a significant moment. Through their practice they strive to live a life that is in balance. They focus on the six paramitas: giving, right behavior, endurance/patience, endeavor/effort, meditation, and wisdom.
Christianity has also chosen the Vernal Equinox to celebrate its holiest feast of Easter, itself a passage from suffering to transformation. It in turn is of course rooted in the Jewish tradition of Passover and the deliverance of a people from oppression to safety.
So it’s a sacred time. For millennia humans have striven to find balance in their lives at this time of year. They have gathered together and prayed and fasted and feasted, thankful for having made it through another winter. They have been a community of support—sangha—for each other. They have listened to the teachings handed down—dharma—of the great ones who have shown the way.
We ourselves live in a world very much out of balance. It’s up to each of us to find the balance in our own lives; to practice ways of right living, patience, effort, prayer and wisdom. Then we begin to build small communities of balance and we learn the art of rowing together. We catch the river’s song and we find the current.
We’re doing it already, and it gives me great hope to be sharing this raft with you.
love and light,
Roger