The Elephant Who Went to the Quiet Forest

Get comfortable. Let this story go on longer than you stay awake for it.

There was a season when the Buddha grew tired of crowds — the arguing, the noise, the wanting.

So he walked away, alone, into a forest called Parileyyaka, where the trees were very old.

In that forest lived a great elephant who had also walked away from his herd.

The herd was noisy. The young ones trampled the grass before he could eat it and muddied the water before he could drink.

So the elephant had come to the quiet forest too, for the same simple reason.

The two of them met beneath a great sal tree, and neither one asked the other to explain.

The elephant brought water in his trunk and set it down where it could be reached.

He swept the ground clear with a branch. He stood at the edge of the clearing at night, listening for anything that might come.

No conversation. No advice. Only two beings who had needed quiet, keeping quiet together.

The days went slowly. Rain came and went. Fruit fell and was eaten.

There is a kind of rest that only comes when nobody needs anything from you.

You are allowed that. Wanting to be alone is not the same as being unloving.

Tonight, your room is the quiet forest. The dark is the old trees.

Something steady is standing at the edge of the clearing so that you don't have to keep watch.

Let your listening go soft. You are not on duty.

The elephant lay down at last with his great side rising and falling, slow as weather.

Match that. In. And out. Slower than you think you need to.

Eventually the people came looking, and the season ended, and the world started again — but not yet. Not tonight.

Tonight the forest is still going, deep and dark and green in every direction.

Nothing is required of you here.

Rest. The clearing is swept. The water is set down. You are watched over.