The pinwheel

This is a true story that took place at one of the Saturday afternoon lectures, or dharma talks, at the San Francisco Zen center in San Francisco, CA.  I love the simplicity of it and I hope you like it too.  That's Corby and I in the pictures on our way home from NY.  He took very good care of his 4th of July pinwheel from Aunt Jane's and carried it in his pocket the entire way home.  He let me borrow it when I got bored.  Those are some of Aunt Jane's painted twigs in his pocket too.

The room was filled with about 50 people, slowly shifting, straightening out their legs as the gong sounded to end the meditation.  As we rearranged our bodies, preparing for the teaching, the head monk turned our attention to the children present before he began his lecture.  Each child had been given a pinwheel as they entered the meditation room that afternoon, a brilliant idea and a hugely successful one at providing the children a quiet way to relax and play.  There was a calmness in the room as we gathered ourselves, focused, intent to listen and learn from the monk about the buddha nature; compassion and the union of wisdom and emptiness.  There was a tangible intensity to the silence as we patiently waited to hear what he would say.

"What do think about the pinwheels?"  he asked.  The children each shouted out their discoveries enthusiastically..."They're fun!"   "They're beautiful"   " They go 'round and 'round".

One child shared less excited, "sometimes they break". 

The monk was nodding and smiling as he listened to each of them share their pinwheel wisdom.  We adults, dutifully still, waited patiently on our pillows, waiting for the lecture.

One child held his pinwheel up high and shouted "You know, if you don't blow on it, it doesn't go!"

Suddenly the silence in the room plunged a little deeper.  The monk smiled as he refocused his attention to all the adults in the room and paused, letting the child's statement sink in.

"I think we've heard our lecture for today..."he smiled and beamed proudly at how easily the children had grasped a simple yet profound concept.     "...if you don't blow on it...it doesn't go".  And he quietly, slowly stood up and left the room.