"Seeing through ignorance and realizing the meaning of our lives is very precise work -- work for a mind that is stable, clear, and strong. It takes patience to do this practice. As my father used to say, it's like combing our hair over and over again. We're becoming familiar with thoughts that will shift the stream of our being, the direction of our lives -- if we let their meaning penetrate us. In becoming familiar with love and compassion, karma and samsara, the preciousness of being human, the inevitability of death, we train in diving deep into the truth and awakening our dormant wisdom."
Sakyong Mipham
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Bushwacking
The beautiful story of the secret garden almost makes me sad. There is an exquisite, gaping need that a secret garden can fulfill, which is as sharp as it is meaningful. Why does it need to be a secret? Why isn't there another, more welcoming garden. As a kid I read the book, watched the movie (the best one with the beautiful music) and dreamed of my own key that would unlock my own garden. But what is it that makes one want possession of a garden.
People need places. They need secret places, adventurous places, places to challenge them and places to be comfortable. Maybe a secret garden is a place of ultimate privacy. A place like those darkly colored places in your mind or imagination which only you know about. A place that is safe, because nobody will ever find it.
But the story makes me sad because it doesn't show the other places. Wouldn't an open, sunny, welcoming garden be more cheerful, more joyful, more friendly. Wouldn't this, I might assume, be more fulfilling in its splendour than the garden that was closed off from the world. Wouldn't a welcoming, open garden be a sign of life, a celebration of activity. A PART of life. A secret garden somehow feels too separate for me. Too separate from life, and somehow unattainable.
But we all need those secret places, perhaps, as much as we need the public. And if the comfortable garden can't be found, maybe a secret one can be made somewhere. Maybe we need them both. Where I live now I can't have the garden I'd like, can't have the homestead I'd like, and I have no vegetables planted at all. But I am, slowly, burrowing my way through the deep underbrush, fighting through the thorns, to make paths to my own secret place.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Spring
I forget sometimes how much I need silence. There is something about silence that makes me feel like I need less than I might have thought, like everything might actually be... OK. Have you ever been out on a hike or walking on a spring day, or working outside during a weekend, maybe preoccupied with something that happened. Maybe worried about something that might happen, not really thinking about what you're doing at this moment, when all the sudden you breath, notice the sunshine, and realize that right now all you really need ist he feel of that sun on your skin. Somehow everything else feels further away. Not more distant, still right there, but separated from you somehow.
Every spring in Maine is the same. Everything starts to speed up in a big exciting race to the fourth of July, then swinging back toward fall, descelerating, like a pendulum. As the days get longer, more shops on main street open, traffic picks up, construction crews get working, events get flanned and put in the paper... For the most part there is a fun, exhilarating energy that comes with the quickness of spring. But as we go about in our cars, the birds are building their nests, the chipmunks are buiding their dens, the trees sproud new shoots, the bulbs blossom new tulips and the plants and flowers grow and change as quickly as an infant, in a rush to grow tall enough to touch the sun before the fourth of July. For the most part this activity is fun, exhilarating, with the same energy as a field of lightening bugs enticing each other into matrimony in a field of snow. But with all this fun the deep silence of winter disappears, and with it my ability to notice each thing, individually, and really see it. Wearry from all the activity, in the forest behind the house and on the road in front of me, I fail to appreciate the extent of the beauty and life that I've waited for all winter.
But then after a busy Sunday, when most everything is finished, just as the sun starts to go down, I hear no noise, or at least, only one noise at a time. I hear the birds chirping out back, and nothing else. And somehow the quiet of that one moment, with no talk, no engines, no music, no tv, no appliances (I have a very loud bread machine that gets quite the workout on Sundays), I'm able to recover enough, catch up to my senses. I hear not only the birds now but the ones from earlier in the day. I notice the trees across the street that are full, ad the ones not greet yet above them, seeing the different layers of growth as the blend together in new life. I can think of the events happening around town and distinguish the festivals and the farmers' markets from one another. Just one moment of quiet, stillness helps me process. Just the one moment helps me catch up to my senses and enjoy what I sensed through the day.
Every spring in Maine is the same. Everything starts to speed up in a big exciting race to the fourth of July, then swinging back toward fall, descelerating, like a pendulum. As the days get longer, more shops on main street open, traffic picks up, construction crews get working, events get flanned and put in the paper... For the most part there is a fun, exhilarating energy that comes with the quickness of spring. But as we go about in our cars, the birds are building their nests, the chipmunks are buiding their dens, the trees sproud new shoots, the bulbs blossom new tulips and the plants and flowers grow and change as quickly as an infant, in a rush to grow tall enough to touch the sun before the fourth of July. For the most part this activity is fun, exhilarating, with the same energy as a field of lightening bugs enticing each other into matrimony in a field of snow. But with all this fun the deep silence of winter disappears, and with it my ability to notice each thing, individually, and really see it. Wearry from all the activity, in the forest behind the house and on the road in front of me, I fail to appreciate the extent of the beauty and life that I've waited for all winter.
But then after a busy Sunday, when most everything is finished, just as the sun starts to go down, I hear no noise, or at least, only one noise at a time. I hear the birds chirping out back, and nothing else. And somehow the quiet of that one moment, with no talk, no engines, no music, no tv, no appliances (I have a very loud bread machine that gets quite the workout on Sundays), I'm able to recover enough, catch up to my senses. I hear not only the birds now but the ones from earlier in the day. I notice the trees across the street that are full, ad the ones not greet yet above them, seeing the different layers of growth as the blend together in new life. I can think of the events happening around town and distinguish the festivals and the farmers' markets from one another. Just one moment of quiet, stillness helps me process. Just the one moment helps me catch up to my senses and enjoy what I sensed through the day.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
spring ponderings
I made friends with a chipmunk yesterday. I feel i should maybe questions why this was so important to me. Why was this one moment of eye contact, this brief game of hide and seek, this rush when he ran toward me and looked, such a powerful moment, powerful enough to effect my whole day.
the green curtain is filling in
This time of year I can't keep myself inside, and I physically can't imagine living in a city anymore.
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