Rideau Lakes Zen - Zen Fishing Part 2

Rideau Lakes Zen

Zen Fishing - Part 2

by Janice

Eventually, since I hardly ever caught anything really, it became bothersome for me with all of those lines, hooks and plastic baits. So I kept going out in the boats on the water, but I stopped fishing.

We moved closer more than once to do more "fishing". I just kept sitting quietly for hours at a time in the boats on the water with family and learning about the fish and the breeze and the plants and the animals and the insects and the sun and the moon and the clouds and the Universe as it passed by. Sometimes we would read. Sometimes we would chat. Sometimes we played cards. Sometimes we ate snacks. Sometimes we took pictures. Sometimes they fished. Sometimes we would sit quietly and drift and flow with the wind, clouds and water, or sometimes one of us would lean back and relax with a big hat over our eyes.

I began taking pictures of fish. First it was trophy pictures of fish as they were caught by others. Then it was fish swimming by in the water from a boat, shore, rock or dock. Zen fishing.

Then there were pictures of the birds, the clouds, rocks, the moon and the sun, landscapes, flowers, people, trees, plants and animals as they passed by too. We learned, we noticed and we grew.

Family grew and shrank. People came and went. Money came and went too. It will all likely come and go some more. Regardless, I still go for 15 minutes at a dock, or an hour here or there, or an afternoon if I am really lucky. All you need is a lake, a shore, or a boat, or a dock, or a rock, or a raft, or a swim noodle, or even just a stream.

If you don’t have access to one of those, all you need is someplace - any place really that is quiet and safe. After more than 5 decades of “fishing” in all weather and all seasons at all times of day with others and alone in, on, around and out of the water, I eventually discovered something. I found that for the ability to do Zen once I knew I had learned, it didn't really matter where, which country, countryside or city, inside or out, day or night. I also discovered it is almost always better in a boat, or on a dock, or a rock, or a raft, or a swim noodle, or even just by myself in the quiet at a lake in the wilderness, at certain times, ways and places. I go when the time is right, whenever I can which isn't anywhere near as much as I would like. Much of the time there isn’t even a boat, a dock, a rock, a raft, a noodle, a lake, a shore or wilderness, or the right times, ways and places. Then I have to make do or adjust however I can with what I learned along the way. Drift with clouds. Flow with water. Find the pure flowing Light of the Heaven (the Universe, or God in Christian terms) right where you are standing.

I haven’t actually fished in decades, but I learned how to do Tenno Hikari Zen "fishing".

The Pure Flowing Light of the Universe is our Light.

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