I am piecing together what this world means. I think i am at least. I don’t know how to frame what I have found. Lying here, in this bed. I realized it a little the other day when the room had changed. Now I can’t remember what the change was. Maybe the color of the walls. Maybe the sheet?
I had the realization that something was the same when i dreamed of the Buddha. I was in a dream that was sepia toned, and muted. So soft focused, that I thought at first my eyes were blurring and my vision was going somehow. Everything had a glow, and the edges looked blurry and washed out in the light. Even the light was strange. It reminded me of my hospital room, emitting from the walls and the ceiling and every object. It was a soft golden-brown light. Something that highlighted the slowness and peace of the place i was.
In the dream, a man was walking down a dirt trail. The trail was well worn, and I had the feeling that this path has been walked by so many feet, that if no one walked it again in our lifetime, it would never loosen enough to allow grass to fill the space. The earth had the feel of soft rock on your feet. Leaving a small coating of soil, but not enough to make much of a mark on the road itself. It is strange to have such a strong response to a trail.
I know this must be something that runs through the core of me, this response to roads and trails. I see them everywhere. Mostly small game trails, but also those carved by the feet of people. I have dreams of the people who maintain the trails, cutting back the branches that grow too close, and shoring up erosion before it can eat away the path.
This dream though, the man was walking slowly towards me. He was a short man, but I don’t know how to measure him in my dream, only that he was short. He was bald, and looked like he had never had a hair growing on his head at any point in his life. He had a smile on his face, and he looked like a man who is always on the edge of smiling. Always hearing a hidden joke or a story just out of range of hearing.
Seeing him walking down this trail, he seemed as if every step he took, and every movement he made, he was one with the ground and the air. He didn’t seem to push through the world, he seemed to acknowledge it and let it bend around him to let him through. I have never seen anything like how he walked. Such a normal thing, and he made it look like prayer. Like he was in communion with the air and the wind. It seemed as if he has been walking on this road for so long, and would walk it for longer than anything around him lasts.
I noticed that on his back, draped over his shoulder was a large sack. The sack was rough brown cloth. It hung easily over his shoulder, and down over his back, down almost to his knees. He carried it like it wasn’t there, and also like it was the most precious belonging he had ever encountered in his life. He held the sack in one hand, but the cloth seemed to hold a large bundle inside of it. I remember the feeling that if i could see in this place, it would show me so many wonders. I would spend the rest of my days in awe of what i had seen. I knew that if i asked, he would open the mouth of the sack for me without hesitating and let me look inside.
Dressed in robes that reached down to the ground, they seemed the perfect length. They touched the earth, but not in a way that would cause them to fray, or brushing anything off the ground. It was like they were hovering over the ground, and just moving with him. He had them loosely bound in front of him, with a cord belt wrapped around his waist. He had a huge belly. It looked like a globe, and the robe was free to move around his large stomach and chest. He didn’t seem to notice the weather, or be concerned with anything except his feet on the trail, and the quiet joke he seemed to know.
None of this answers why i have such a strong feeling about this man. Why i feel like he holds an answer to me. The thing that made me think that was when i noticed the trail behind him. I noticed that the solid ground in front of him was fading out after he had passed. It seemed to grow misty. Even more hazy than the already gold day that was everywhere in this dream. The road behind him seemed to draw into the air. Sort of like a stream of smoke riding horizontal. That was when i noticed that the mouth of the bag was slightly open in his hand. He hadn’t seemed to notice the slight gap. The road was being drawn up from behind him into the sack that he carried. It seemed to stretch out and get thinner as it got closer to the gap. Becoming almost translucent as it rose up.
It also occured to me that it wasn’t happening straight up. It formed a gentle loop up from the ground to the sack. Maybe starting a few dozen feet behind him. Then curving up and looping over and going back to the sack behind him. It seemed as if he was drawing the road he walked up behind him. Not locking it away, but keeping the physical path itself from being travelled. Not the path itself though, but something else that was on the path.
This is when i started to realize that these constant visions of pathways in my dreams are the clues. They are like a puzzle. More like a path that I need to follow. In my mind i think that i am seeing a way to remove myself from where i am currently. It seems that there is a connection between the pathways i keep seeing and the hospital bed i find myself in. There is a symmetry between the pathway becoming insubstantial and my body’s inability to move. I am awake now, but I need to speak to the Buddha. Find some way to walk a moment with him, and see if the tranquility he carries can be sent to me. It seems as if a still mind will hold a key to a door in my mind. Something i can follow through to understand why i am here still in this room.