All is quiet in the house. Not a breath of wind, not a whisper. The building has settled. The water heating boiler switched off at 9.00 pm. The hum and swish in the pipes has been silenced. My near neighbours have settled for the night, and I’m settled for the night too. Settling takes a bit of effort though, especially if the day has been full of activity. Which day isn’t I might ask. Time to stop.

It is a matter of choice. Choosing to stop, rather than keep going on. Choosing to let the hum and swish within oneself, both body and mind to become settled. Even those who simply have no choice but to carry on, keeping going all the hours there are and more, can settle. I’ve been that person.

In the end I believe this settling is not dependent on external conditions, a quiet house for example. I don’t think it’s dependent on an inner condition either, a certain mental state such as peacefulness or lack of busy thoughts or absence of pain or discomfort. And no, I’m not going to stay up any longer to talk about settling!

Thanks to Walter in Singapore for the photograph, taken in China Town – while the Buddha looks on.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
Letters to a young Poet #4 by Rainer Maria Rilke

Thanks to Dave for the quote.

Andrew’s been baking pizza. In his recent post, Doubts About Pizza he ponders on lifestyle and the big question – action. And the subject of being spiritually adult.

…in our practice there is no possibility of justifying what we do. We can construct a rationalisation to justify a lifestyle if we want – but it doesn’t help. Sooner or later we have to let go of this deep need for self-justification, and for the seeking of approval of those close to us, and just do what seems good to do there and then – with no guarantees that it will still be the good thing to do next week, or even tomorrow.

I’ve been pondering on the matter of confidence, which is not a million miles away from Andrew’s ponderings on pizza. Here is a quote on confidence, which I find rather clear on the subject.

It’s very interesting, that the more confident you feel, the less you notice it. Then when something happens that causes you to doubt, you start thinking; what’s wrong? Suddenly you need to know lots of things – you try to look for something to grab on to. But when you feel confident you don’t need to think very much, actually. You just sail through the situation; something’s happening through you, and you’re just there for the ride as it were, sailing on something.
Lama Shenpen Hookham

For me this is a description of how deep faith, the something, is expressed in daily living. One does, of course, have to be present!