An ode to butterflies, with photographs, insights, a poem and a quote by Osho – from Dhyan Tarpan
Rabindranath Tagore hits like a Zen master when he says, “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Then I ask myself, “Why am I hurrying?” Especially when focussing my lens on a butterfly. I had misunderstood that the butterfly is in a hurry, seeing her continuous fluttering. She is not sitting on a flower for a long time, she moves around and comes back to the same flower or leaf, again and again.
She is not in a hurry. Her time dimension is different. Perhaps that butterfly thought, “Why is this man so restless?” She must have caught me red-handed and seen that all my silence was fake; I am just impatient within, or I am a little bit ill: ‘a patient of restlessness’.
Then I give up all my plans for that ‘butterfly click’, and settle within, slowly. Once the ripples settle back and calm down, the same butterfly appears before me and allows herself to be caught for a smooth shot. (Perhaps, then, she even invites me?) That’s how most of these photographs happened.
We can experience a Tao connection very easily when we try for a butterfly shot (in fact, it’s the same for every shot of any living being). That’s the whole joy of photography. And that’s how learning from photography becomes more significant than learning photography.
Do butterflies actually count the moments, as Rabindranath Tagore said? No, I don’t think so. It was a poor allowance he gave to us time-eaters. Otherwise we wouldn’t understand even a little.
Only because our operating system has become ‘the time’, we started counting, and we compare stillness with movement, speed and hurry. Once we change the OS into ‘suchness’ (not timelessness!), then what difference could there be between stillness and fluttering? Between calmness and chaos?
Yes, butterflies are masters too, like all and everything.
It must be because of this that Aristotle started calling butterflies ‘Psyche’, in Greek. It must be because of this Chuang Tzu deliberately dreamt of a butterfly and suspected that he was probably the dream of another butterfly.
Butterflies glide in suchness, not bothering Aristotle or Chuang Tzu. They flutter enough when they feel like fluttering. They sit in Zazen when they enjoy being still. They don’t argue even with caterpillars, or try to convince them that there is nothing to understand but flutter your wings and fly.
How beautifully does Osho speak about the master-disciple relationship and likens it to the relationship between a caterpillar and a butterfly: “The butterfly cannot prove that the caterpillar can become a butterfly; there is no logical way. But the butterfly can provoke a longing in the caterpillar – that is possible.” 1
It’s a butterfly fest all over –
like I saw in the sacred hills
of Arunachala, a few months back!
I put my camera away in its bag.
Oh! all the butterflies I had tried to photograph but couldn’t,
surround me like honey bees.
They gather like a gliding cloud in front of me.
Once you don’t have any intention to shoot a butterfly,
you start hearing the flapping of its wings too.
It’s the most refreshing bath one can ever have…
Yes, it is.
Source
- Osho, Ah, This! Ch 1
Related articles
- Butterflies – A short poem and a wonderful photograph by Tarpan
- More by Dhyan Tarpan on Osho News
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