Let It Grow Organic Gardens

And I resumed the struggle. -Vladimir

Monday, October 30, 2006

Stab Your Probiscus Deep Into My Heart and Suck Out My Insides

The inherent nature of all condtioned phenomenoa is one of decay, this we must always remember.
I was a bit apprehensive when a friend called this morning and asked me to help her gather bugs. I could think of more exciting things to do. But, alas, I allowed this inevitable tide of fortune to sweep me away, and found myself walking across a field with a giant net.
I walked all around. This way and that. Looking. After a while, I found a roly-poly. Then I walked all around some more. Looking.
The first conclusion I came to was that if I were a bird, I would surely starve to death.
After a period of time and my little vile still empty, I decided to allow nature to do the work. I figured I'd just look for spiderwebs. That's where the bugs would be. I was then informed that we had to catch live bugs.
I looked under piles of leaves, under old, rotten branches, up and down tree branches, under benches and at the base of fenceposts, even under the soles of my shoes. Nothing.
Midsummer, I knew, would bring billions of the little guys on every plant in my fields. But when you want them around ....
I put my elbows on the railing of a little bridge and looked down at my reflection in a brook. Then I looked to the sky, and then to the water again, and then to the sky. I looked at a little poplar growing along the water and noticed the moss was moving. I looked closer and saw that the moss was a bug.
Eureka!
I got the little guy into my vile and, bouyed, went in search of more. On the leaf of a rhododendron not far away, there was another ... well, bug. Six legs, little exoskeleton, antennea, yep, a bug. Into the vile it went.
I acted as nonchalant as I could for a moment or two, then ran to my friend with my finds.
"Err," I tried to play it cool, "perhaps these will help."
We gazed. We oo-ed. We ahh-ed. We enjoyed the exquisite beauty of nature. Then the big six legged bug walked over to the little moss bug, unfurled its mighty snoz and stuck it into the moss bug.
Hemiptera, I was informed. Some subsist only on fluids. They inject enzymes into their prey, that dissolve their insides. Then they suck everything out.
We watched the whole ordeal. The little moss bug never stood a chance. He was helplessly pierced. The big bug raised him up and swung him around on his sword, laid him down, and picked him up again. Our reflections were on the vile, and beneath that, the scene of horror.
I wanted to save the little moss bug. I didn't want the big bug to starve. I looked through my reflection at the scene below.
Impermanancy is the rising, passing and changing of things, or the disappearance of things that have become or arisen. The meaning of these things never persist in the same way, but that they are vanishing and dissolving from moment to moment.
Visuddhi Magga, 7:3.

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