Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Another month has sped by. Memorial Day the first holiday of the summer has come and gone. Time is taking me quickly to that indeterminate place called old. My good friends’ last child just graduated from high school. Oh how that makes me feel aged.
As I said the first holiday of the summer passed and I did very little. I watched a movie; I watched part of a TV marathon. I cleaned my desk about 2/3rds of the way toward functional. Oh there was that hiding in the basement for the tornado warning thing, I did that too.
In the silence of the afternoon all is present and all is inscrutable. –T. Merton
On one of the three afternoons of this long weekend I did spend a few moments reading out by the fountain in the backyard. I sat at a chair and listening to the bubbling of the water for a time. Shifting locales I lay in a hammock for an hour or two also.
Being there in the small space behind my home I can offer that there is no silence in either nature or in a suburban locale. However there is a sense of presence in the world. I can’t put my finger on why sitting in my backyard reading about losing anger feels right but it does. Maybe the distance from the world I sense in my act of focus on the article while hearing background birdsong is what Merton was talking.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Bicycle Moment
When I was young I was fat and socially isolated. My situation was not helped by the fact that due to nystagmus I was nearly blind. What social skills I possessed were abysmal. No matter what I did the outcome never seemed right.
Only when I learned to ride my bicycle did I find a place of respite. Living in a farm town there were miles of empty roads to ride about on. Some were smooth, some were bumpy and some had big dogs that chased you. When you rode down those roads your butt bounced, you wheels slid and you lifted you feet up to the handle bars so the dogs in pursuit wouldn’t get a nip of your ankles. Most of those dogs would chase you no farther than the edge of the yard in front of the farm house that was their abode.
Every day unless it was pouring outside I rode my metal flake purple W.T. Grant sting ray bike about two miles. I really didn’t have a destination I just had a duration of time to be spent on the road. One route went down and across Oldman’s creek and back, another took me out to Lerro Lane and then to B.F. Goodrich and then the Baptist church and home. Or maybe I would ride to the church first and then down Straughn Mill Road over Freed Road and then up the Pederickton-Woodstown road home.
Whatever way I went I knew every divot in the macadam and every stone that would fly out from under my wheels. I knew when to pedal like a madman and where to coast. Time passed but I am always in that moment on my bike free of my daily worries. Time does not just fly away in the passage of hours and days.
If time’s flight were its only function then you would be separate and distinct from time. You are not. Understand the time being is not time just passing you by. All things in the world are linked with one another in moments. All moments are the time being. All of these linked moments are your time being.
Vigorously abide in each moment in the time being. Lift your feet up and fly past the dogs of existence.
Only when I learned to ride my bicycle did I find a place of respite. Living in a farm town there were miles of empty roads to ride about on. Some were smooth, some were bumpy and some had big dogs that chased you. When you rode down those roads your butt bounced, you wheels slid and you lifted you feet up to the handle bars so the dogs in pursuit wouldn’t get a nip of your ankles. Most of those dogs would chase you no farther than the edge of the yard in front of the farm house that was their abode.
Every day unless it was pouring outside I rode my metal flake purple W.T. Grant sting ray bike about two miles. I really didn’t have a destination I just had a duration of time to be spent on the road. One route went down and across Oldman’s creek and back, another took me out to Lerro Lane and then to B.F. Goodrich and then the Baptist church and home. Or maybe I would ride to the church first and then down Straughn Mill Road over Freed Road and then up the Pederickton-Woodstown road home.
Whatever way I went I knew every divot in the macadam and every stone that would fly out from under my wheels. I knew when to pedal like a madman and where to coast. Time passed but I am always in that moment on my bike free of my daily worries. Time does not just fly away in the passage of hours and days.
If time’s flight were its only function then you would be separate and distinct from time. You are not. Understand the time being is not time just passing you by. All things in the world are linked with one another in moments. All moments are the time being. All of these linked moments are your time being.
Vigorously abide in each moment in the time being. Lift your feet up and fly past the dogs of existence.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Where I Am
Equanimity, poise, and a state of calm composure I am trying to develop these. Each day I dip my toe into a little aspect of Zen. I read a passage here or there. Either I go out to the Tricycle online Buddhist community or I read a bit more from Master Dogen’s writings. Some of the things I find are as odd as you would find in any other organized religion, maybe even odder. But there are small bits about non attachment and awareness that just draw me into a sense of wonder. At my age a sense of wonder about anything is good. Take a lungful of air slowly and let it gently escape.
Next to where I work is a little exercise store. The other day I went and bought a mini workout mat. It is simply a little piece of foam. Each day at noon I lock my door here in my office. I turn off all but one of my lights. I turn on some ancient hymns and I sit legs folded on the mat. All I try and do is clear my mind. For 10 minutes I simply try to think of nothing. Thoughts fly by but I try not to grab them and I let them pass. It isn’t real Zen I don’t think but it sure does seem to help the day seem more manageable. $8 of foam rubber and 10 minutes of time can and do make a difference.
Next to where I work is a little exercise store. The other day I went and bought a mini workout mat. It is simply a little piece of foam. Each day at noon I lock my door here in my office. I turn off all but one of my lights. I turn on some ancient hymns and I sit legs folded on the mat. All I try and do is clear my mind. For 10 minutes I simply try to think of nothing. Thoughts fly by but I try not to grab them and I let them pass. It isn’t real Zen I don’t think but it sure does seem to help the day seem more manageable. $8 of foam rubber and 10 minutes of time can and do make a difference.
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