Rideau Lakes Zen - Zen Fishing 1

Rideau Lakes Zen

Zen Fishing - Part 1

by Janice

I learned to sit quietly in boats for hours at a time beginning at the age of 5 while on fishing vacations with my family in a rented aluminum fishing boat. I learned about watching the sun and the moon and the wind and the waves just through observing.

At first I played with fish from the dock, catching them and letting them go. I just sat quietly when we went out in the boat. After I grew a bit, I started fishing in the boat with my family, and we fished on different lakes in different places and ways. We drifted, we trolled, we motored, we rowed, we cast our lines, we anchored and dropped our weighted lines and we hula popped. We usually fished until early afternoon and sometimes we would go out again before and after dinner.

When you got tired of fishing, you put your pole down for good or for a bit and drifted with the wind, the waves, the sun, the moon and the clouds amidst pines and maples on a series of lakes 202 km long doing something or nothing while others fished.

However, even though I would sometimes get up at dawn or stay out until the moon in its various shapes was up at nearly midnight, I almost never caught any fish. More than once while just sitting there leaning over the edge of the boat looking at the water dreaming about something or nothing, I would watch a big fish swim around beside the boat while others fished.

We learned to be on the water in the sun and the rain, when it was calm or in the wind and the waves and even the snow and ice. As an adult I went fishing in the day and in the night. At dawn and before lunch. In the morning and the afternoon and the evening. Under the moon, big and small and the sun in all weather. In all fishing seasons. Some family could catch their limit - whole stringers full in a morning or afternoon that would turn into a family & friends fish fry. Others moved to catch and release.

To be continued...

Family, Friends and Monastic-Oriented - A Flowing Zen Perspective

The Pure Flowing Light of the Universe is our Light.