January 8, 2009 at 12:32 pm (Life)
Tags: Journey, Life
There are many in this world who are given over to life to such a complete extent that they live it fully, in the crazy, vigorous, zesty engagement of family, career, home, and general grist of living.
I am sometimes envious of such ones because others of us appear to be here as visitors, as though from some other planet, plane, or dimension. If there are parallel universes, perhaps we have been slipped into the wrong one.
We have been sent here for other reasons, yet are often confused by our own yearning to be part of the fray of humanity.
And yet, somethint more ethereal is also transpiring, yet to be discovered and realized.
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January 5, 2009 at 1:52 pm (Life)
Tags: Journey, Joy, Life
We live our lives thinking that we are in control, masters of our destinies.
Our bodies, however,
do what they do,
irrespective of our conceived appointments with dream fulfillment.
Whatever we need,
that appears.
We may not like what we need.
Tonight, I heard stories from a man who lived through five concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
The light of joy was in his eyes.
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October 20, 2008 at 11:31 am (Spirituality)
Tags: Seeds
As a seed, I am cracking open. It has started.
The energy has been pushing up against the inside walls, for a long time now.
It’s been necessary, this compressed tomb-living, creating the yearning for expansion.
Gifts, talents, strengths…
Visions of possibility form, still cloudy…
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October 13, 2008 at 9:28 am (Life, Spirituality)
Sometimes stillness is enough.
Life stops making sense and the temptation to drink bitterness, resistance and opposition seems justified, righteous.
What’s the point? Who does it serve?
No one.
No
One.
The Presence has appeared in this fray, this messy mix-up to remind us that we are love.
We are.
Sink into it.
Let resistance dissolve into a muddy, smooth, lovely glue that holds joyous connection as its reason for being.
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August 26, 2008 at 3:47 pm (Life, Spirituality, Work)
Tags: Gump, zazen
I’ve come to a rather sobering realization lately: considering my skills, talents and abilities, I am fortunate to be employed at all.
Really.
I have no marketable skills. Perhaps even more disturbing, I lack any interest or motivation in developing my skillset. How is it that I have managed to avoid being fired all these years?
I am good at one thing: sitting like an idiot. I am sure that Forest Gump and I are twin brothers separated at birth.
Of course, Forest Gump is an enlightened master, so maybe there is hope for me afterall.
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August 7, 2008 at 11:05 am (Spirituality)
Tags: old geezer, zazen
With increasing frequency I find myself approaching my meditation chair. It sits in the corner, by a window, a firm, upright piece that was given to me by some nuns I know.
Sometimes I am not sure what to do with the next 15 minutes. So I sit in the chair.
My eyes remain open, my mind becomes a blank table.
I look around, seeing everything that is contained in that moment. I call it ‘toothless old geezer training.’
I don’t know for sure, but at the end of an aged life, I may find that I am a toothless old geezer. In an odd way, I kind of look forward to it.
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August 4, 2008 at 1:52 pm (Life)
Tags: memory, senior moments
My friend greets me with the surprise, delight and wonder of a 5year old, amazed yet again that I am, apparently, alive and still walking the earth. Of course, a couple of days ago I told her I would be dropping by to see her. She is 86 and does not remember things. I have not, in the last 11 years, seen her so child-like, contented, free from grasping. Like a Zen Master, she sits, completely in the moment, in perfect harmony with what is.
And me? Now in my mid-forties, I aspire to have a few such senior moments, moments of wisdom and tranquility.
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August 1, 2008 at 11:47 am (Life, Work)
Tags: Boredom
I am learning how to be bored. I go to work and sit and do nothing, even as I am doing something. I shuffle papers, I stare out the window, make a phone call.
I listen to silence from a place of stillness.
Nothing is happening; everything is happening.
I’m bored, but not bored.
What is boredom but a name for an experience? Boredom does not exist.
Who lives down there, below the state of what is called ‘boredom’? I live and breathe underneath it, a soul-presence who does not know the meaning of the word boredom, entirely at peace.
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July 31, 2008 at 3:05 pm (Spirituality)
Tags: What's next?
Just going along, spirit-floating.
Not a lot is happening, and I am not making things happen. They take care of themselves.
Coming and going, these micro-events, one here, another over there, wait, now over here again.
And so on.
Don’t identify. Detach. Be like a boat on the waves; let them take you. Agendas, expectations, plans, to-do lists, ambitions: they squeeze the “what’s next?” out of us.
Don’t you just want to see how it all turns out, not as a spectator but as a part of the whole?
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July 28, 2008 at 10:49 am (Life, Spirituality)
Tags: stillness
I learn the way of listening, silence, stillness. The more I express myself through word and action, the more do people take issue with me. I don’t understand myself to be a ‘difficult person,’ but maybe I am one. I must be one. I have passed the week convincing, arguing, explaining or justifying things I have said. Why so difficult? What am I saying that is so challenging?
Today, in the quiet space of restraint, and then waiting, and then the soul-soothing rest, I discovered how the energy can turn, revolve, move, transform. Something larger than my own expressive striving arises, and it opens the way to true relationship.
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