#BUDDHA, #DHARMA, #SANGHA

When I was a child, but during my teen years too, my grandma and her 2 daughters, my aunts, used to take me to their beach house during vacations. Most times, my parents and my sisters wouldn't go with us, staying in São Paulo. Grandma liked very much the seashore but never as a swimmer. Those 3 brave women loved the sea but would rather get out every morning for a silent walking along the beach towards a lagoon where the Itanhaém River meets the Atlantic Ocean, forming a bit salted lake by the mixing and fighting of both water flows, and which many people take for the region's best fishing place.
Those three hobby fishers have been strong, very independent women since ever and till their last days. From them I've learned to fish, a difficult art, which has among its main requirements staying quiet and attentive for prolonged periods, a virtue which certainly is harder, the younger we are.
Probably this was the reason why grandma was always the champion in our group, being so admired too by other fishers.
Those waters might give us useless fish for our consumption, like the venomous pufferfish, some other with no scales like the catfish, rejected by grandma without explanations (at least for me), a lot of too tiny broadband anchovy (easy to catch, but of little value), and the sea bass, the most desired among them but so seldom found there. I have seen Grandma catching several sea basses during that month season, while my aunts caught only 2 or 3 of such trophies. In the meanwhile, I, myself, was picking only pufferfish, always thrown back to the waters, some catfish, until having the sudden luck of catching 26 anchovy. I jumped in happiness, proud of catching many more fish than my fishing teachers. But why weren't they applauding me but faintly? Why were they seemingly not even interested in fishing those little and so abundant anchovies? 

Were they snobbing my achievement?

I got rather worried as we walked together back home, driving grandma to question me:

-- "Marquitos, you seem sad. I bet it's something related to the fishing, but why? You've caught so many anchovies!"

--"But not a single bass, grandma! By the way, it's the only really appreciated fish in this laguna, but I've never caught any!"

--"What's the big deal, Marquitos? You are so young, as I remember you were not on this world just 13 years ago. There will be many basses in your future, be sure!"

-- "Would you tell me your secret to catch so many basses, grandma? Are they friends with you?"

-- "Quite the contrary, they must take me as their fierce enemies. At least whether aware of what waits them in my hands".

---"I don't think so, grandma, you are surely the opposite of an enemy for any living beings on Earth! But anyway tell me, who has taught you this mysterious craft to fish so many basses?"
--"Firstly, there's no secret involved, Marquitos, or at least none which I may be aware of. And as for who taught me the art of fishing those I want most, the answer is threefold: the river, the sea, and the lagoon which results from the up and down tides perpetually fighting against the now stronger, but soon weaker river flow".
In these familiar remembrances I take the flowing waters as the Buddha, because all knowledge must come from them.
The fishing techniques taught me by my grandma and by my aunts, as the Dharma.
Our four people fishing group as the Sangha.