December 22, 2012

My children came into the kitchen this morning with a serious look on their faces. I was standing by the counter, in my robe, making coffee. My wife was seated at the kitchen table, reading the paper.



The kids had been up for a while playing in my daughter’s room. It seems they had been discussing something.



The boy, age 8, had been appointed the spokesman. He is the more gullible and trusting of the two, and had been goaded to the conversation by his sister, age 7.



“Dad,” he said, “we need to talk.”



“What?” I asked.



“Well,” he said, “we were talking about Santa Clause, and we have some problems with the whole thing. It doesn’t really make sense to us, and we want to know if it is true?” He went on to elaborate the traditional list of Yuletide improbabilities.



I set down my coffee on the counter. Considering my options carefully, I turned to face him full on. I looked him in the eye and said:



“It is true. Your mother and I have been lying to you. And, you know how we feel about lying - we hate it. But this is something that adults everywhere have decided we need to lie about. You see, Santa - this idea of a fat jolly old man living with elves - is sweet and safe. The truth is much more strange and bizarre.



It started with an old Buddhist monk named Santu Ha, who lived several thousand years ago in the mountains which divide Mongolia from China. Like all Buddhist monks, Santu spent her life practicing the disciplines of non-attachment to material things and compassion for others.



Santu spent her winters sitting quietly and meditating – hoping to achieve a state of being called ‘Nirvana.’ Nirvana is kind of like heaven or paradise, but it occurs when the person loses his or her individuality and becomes one with the universe. It is supposed to be the best thing ever, but it is kind of hard to explain.



Anyway, when she was not meditating – in the spring and summer especially - she would work very hard. She had a large field of gardens near her hermitage, and she tended them carefully in order to grow huge numbers of fruits and vegetables. Then, when fall came, she would make the long, long trip down the mountains with her trusty Yak, Sabu. She would give away all that she had grown and made during the year to the villagers, leaving behind barely enough to get her through the winter.



The villagers were always very grateful, and they would offer her many gifts. But she had no need for things, so she encouraged the villagers to give the gifts to one another instead. After a few years her arrival became a great festival in the village of thanks and gift giving to one another. She enjoyed it each year, and when the festival was over, she would take Sabu’s lead, and head back into the mountains to start the cycle again.



For a long while she was content living like this. But then one year, as she packed her vegetables to bring them down the mountain, she realized that she really was no closer to Nirvana. Santu thought to herself that perhaps since she had not given it *all* away - since she had saved some for herself - she was being selfish. So, when she and Sabu walked down the mountains, every bit of what she had was strapped to Sabu’s back. There was a great festival, and, of course, the villagers had no idea she had saved nothing for herself.



At the end of the festival, she turned to Sabu and said "I have a gift for you too, loyal servant. I give you your freedom.” And she took off Sabu’s halter and walked back into the mountains, without owning even one thing hereself. But, Sabu loved Santu Ha very much, and so even though he knew he was free, he followed her back into the hills. This made her happy, and she hugged him and rubbed his nose occasionally as they climbed higher and the winds grew.



When they reached her cave and her farming field, she went inside, sat on a stone and began to mediate - watching the shadows play on the cave wall. Sabu wandered off snuffling the ground for the few remaining dry grasses he might eat.



For many days, she sat in complete stillness meditating. Her body grew hungrier and hungrier, but there was no food, so she did not stir and break her concentration. Sabu snuffled outside the cave - occasionally he wandered to the spring on the far side of the field for water - and at night he blocked the entrance to the cave with his body to keep the coldest winds at bay.



Sabu was concerned for Santu, but he would never disturb her while she was sitting in meditation. Still, her skin was turning gray, and she looked frail and very ill. After some time, it was clear she was nearing death. For several weeks the only sound that came from the cave was the steady, slow breathing of the monk. After a while, even that sound became intermittent and more drawn out.



Sabu was scared and sad. One day, he resolved to enter the cave. He looked carefully at her sitting figure, and was about to cross into the cave, when he heard a happy sound. The monk spoke. She said: “Ah! It is a forest! The shadows of the forest of the dreams of children!”



She stood quickly – not with the stiffness you would expect from someone who had sat still for a long time. She was smiling broadly and there was a tear in her eye. Most strangely, she seemed to be radiating a miraculous warm white light. Little sparkles jumped from her and lit the cave. She began to stride purposefully toward him, and she did not look ill at all.



As she passed him, she reached one hand unconsciously and rubbed Sabu’s nose as she always did in greeting him. His nose sprung alive with delight and a deep warmth, and his breath turned to sparkles, like those that wreathed her. He was perplexed – this had never happened before when she touched him!



She walked past him briskly though. She was making her way toward the field - “water, must, thirsty, toward, be” Sabu thought in the way that a Yak does - which is not at all like you or me. But as he turned to follow, he saw that their field was now covered in a twinkling pine forest.



Now, pine trees don’t grow in that part of the world, so even more than their sudden appearance, Sabu was scared because he simply did not know what they were. His newly awakened nose was filled with the scent of spruce - which, while pleasing, was scary because it was unknown to him.



However, as he watched, she plunged in among the trees. And because he loved her more than himself, he quickly trotted in after her.

The forest was dense and dark, but Sabu could see her trail by the sparkles that she had left on the trees that she passed. He followed that trail for hours, but he never seemed to catch up to her. Then, finally, it disappeared. And there, deep in the wood, he stood bewildered.



After a while, Sabu began to snuffle around, snorting his sparkly breath into the pine boughs, hoping he could find scent of her.



Now, what Sabu did not know - and will never understand - is that Santu Ha had glimpsed the edge of the world that exists beyond the space and time you and I can see. And he had followed her into the Forest of the Dreams of Children. There, the dreams of children – things that are not now, but which might be someday – take root and wait for the children (and those that trust and believe in them) to bring them into reality in our world.



And, passing into the Forest of the Dreams of Children, she had given herself freely to it. Each of the sparkles that had jumped off of her was a little bit of her. Each of the trees was a dream waiting to be a reality. And she had nourished each dream as she passed it, until the Forest had consumed all there was of her. And she had now found her Nirvana - because giving yourself fully to nourish the dreams of children is one of the many paths by which to arrive there.



There is not, of course, enough life in any one person to make all of the dreams of all of the children come true. (In fact, the children whose dreams she touched, long ago grew old and passed from this Earth.) And so the Forest still stands, and Sabu still wanders in it.



However, she had also given a little bit of her pure self to Sabu – through that final loving pat on the nose. And so as he still snuffles trees throughout the Forest, looking for her, he carries on her magic. His love for her combines with her one pure compassionate touch to produce the magic sparkles in each of his breaths. And those sparkles nourish the dreams of children everywhere today!



The final thing you need to know is that December 24th is the night of the year when the material world in which we live touches most closely with the forest beyond time where Sabu wanders. And, for what seems like only a few minutes here – but what is a very, very, very long time over there, the worlds overlap. Sabu, ever vigilant, comes and tries to snuffle every pine tree he can find in our world while they are linked.



The funny thing is, if you have a pine tree on which children have focused their dreams, Sabu’s breath can make just a few of them come true. So we grown-ups put up a pine tree, and we decorate it and light it so he is sure to find it. We encourage you to dream of presents by telling you the silly story of Santa and the elves - because, seriously, would you ever believe us if we told you a magic yak could make presents appear from nowhere?“

