WAKING MOTIONS

by Hugh M. Lewis

The way gives them life

Virtue rears them:

Things give them shape;

Circumstances bring them to maturity.

Therefore the myriad creatures all revered the way and honor virtue.

Yet the way is revered and virtue honored not because this is decreed by any authority

but because it is natural for them to be treated so.

(Verse LI, Tao Te Ching, Translated by D.C. Lau, 1984:112)

Often our first waking moments set the course of our entire day. Premonitions are present in that state between sleep and wakefulness that tell us if the day will be good or bad, strange or ordinary. But we cannot predict the events of the day, and we cannot control the actions or reactions of others. We can only hope to control our own responses and expressions in relation to what happens around us.

We are often caught on power trips that propel us forward. It is a fast moving train of events one cannot jump off from. It drives us forward to our destination whether we like it or not, and once we reach it, we no sooner push on to the next place upon our maps. The modern world is conducive to such power trips. It encourages it, indeed, makes it the only possibility of our being within the System.

I once met on a train coming from Thailand to Malaysia a young American who had just finished law school and was traveling about before beginning his successful career in law. He told us about all the places he had been in India and Southeast Asia, and all the places he was going before he returned to the U.S. in another month. He seemed proud of all the places he had been on his itinerary in so short a time. He had been traveling upon the train all day, and was trying to make the Cameroon Highlands by nightfall where he had hotel reservations.

I looked out the train window at the monotonous trees of the rubber plantations, at the beautiful kampong houses and the rain-worn, limestone escarpments of the hills that jutted straight up from the plains, enshrouded with hot mists and green vines of jungle growth. It was an alien world from which I expected Mowgli and a tiger to come looming out of a Jungle path. I became entranced with the scenery fleeting by at 60 miles per hour as the train swayed back and forth on the tracks and the clickety-clack of the wheels gliding along the rails filled the air.

I turned to find my Lawyer Acquaintance had fallen asleep--no doubt tired out from all his endless journeying. A few hours later the train was pulling into the Butterworth Station at Penang--it was late afternoon and the train would be there for an hour before departing again further South. I woke the American up and invited him to come across the ferry to visit Penang and eat some good hawker food. He seemed suddenly taken by the idea and followed us off the train and onto the ferry. The ferry ride was pleasant and uncrowded. The sea breezes always cool off the passengers. Fifteen minutes later we arrive at the other side of the channel and we walk down the long gangways out to a hawker complex across the road. Just then our new found lawyer friend looks at his watch and realizes he has only a half-hour left to catch the train, so he returns to take the Journey back to the train station on the other side. He hurriedly takes our photo against the Penang city-scape--undoubtedly to tell all his friends back in the U.S. about his visit to Penang, and he runs back up the gang-way, never to be seen or heard from again.

We wondered as we sat down to eat some makan whether he made his train on time, and, if so, whether or not he would fall asleep again before reaching the Cameroon Highlands.

I have never been much of a traveler. Rarely are the rewards of traveling worth the hassles, the uncertainties and the extra expenses it entails. I found in my journeys that there is so much to be discovered in the many intersections and alley ways of a single old Chinatown like Penang that I've never had the time or inclination left over to go exploring other places. It combines almost all the characteristics of Asia--the food, the people, the dirtiness, the humidity, the suffering, the Buddhism, in a single small place.

One day I would like to visit England, and Europe, and Canada and the Pacific and beyond. But if I never get to these places I will not regret it or miss them too much. My imagination is so great that I'm liable to be disappointed anyway.

Every moment of our experience is a new awakening between the past and the present, every new awakening is a bridge between our unconscious life and the world around us. Every passing moment represents a new beginning, a new turning, a new adventure pregnant with possibility and imagination. Even in sleep we find the connection being made, in our dreams and the deathlike suspension of our present consciousness. Every new moment is also therefore an end, a separation, a loss and a death--that drives our past attachments and belongings further and further away from us.

Time travels in only one irreversible direction, and we cannot find ourselves in more than one place at a time, no matter how many different places we may imagine for ourselves.

hurt

hungry

tiny kitten

lost and alone

scared and wounded

in the middle of the intersection

who left you their to meet your fate

you did not know the difference

your mother is far, far away

your sisters and brothers

are by the trash dumped

blind and skinny

hairless creatures

soul-less

I stop

and kneel down

to take your picture

and capture your plight

I move you to the side of the road

I am afraid to touch you

except with my shoe

Then I walk away

not looking

unwilling to do more

leaving you to face your fate

in a world that does not care less

that cannot afford

to care

Dog chained to the wall

sitting next to your shit

a pan of water tipped over

your owner nowhere to be found

guarding a gutter

this is the third time I've found you there

forlorn and forever

waiting for your master

who keeps you always

on the end of that short

chain

there is no escape

from the prison that has no bars

without locks or bounds

there is no freedom

from the empire of the spirit

there is no release

or salvation

from the chains

of the suffering soul

there are no exits

from the conventions and constraints

of the bounded imagination

there is no flight

from the laws that keep our feet planted to the earth

forever we must return

to the condition of our

limited existence

fated and sated

bound by the finality

of our own being

some prosper

others starve

some grow strong

others become weak

the poor get rich

and the rich become poor

success is had by others' failure

and failure caused by others' success

the ladder of life is never even

and its climb is never easy or fair

those on top

do not know those on the bottom

and those at the bottom

do not know those on top

such knowledge is dangerous

and most who live and die

are anonymous

salt of the earth

old woman

with festering legs

hung over the edge of the planks

on top of two Chinese saw horses

living on top of those planks

twenty-six years

all her belongings

hung from bags on the wall

or underneath the planks

now her hips were bad

and she could barely walk

her daughter would bring her food every day

she always smiled to greet me

and never had a cross moment

quiet and motionless she sat

surveying the world

outside her little window