and sometimes one gets too close up and what’s there goes out of focus.
Uh! and sometimes one gets so close what’s there runs away!
And sometimes there is just clarity. Brightly Alive attention.
This posting is for those who find themselves in extremity.
I found this quote among my notes and thought to share it with you. For many this will not be new, for others it will be.
The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something – because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. – And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953, No. 125
So what’s to do?
Zen Master Dogen wrote To live by Zen is the same as to live an ordinary daily life. This is not an ordinary in the everyday kind of usage and meaning. I’d say it is an extraordinarily ordinary daily life. Please don’t think about all of this too much. Life is for living; being the best person you can be, breath by breath.
Seven days a week. Meditation-ceremonies-meals-community teas-business meetings-more meals and teas-washing up-walking in the rain-talking in the rain….singing in the rain! Then there is doing laundry-washing self-preparing for ceremonies-cleaning boots-sewing robes-answering emails-multiple refuge phone calls-lay ministry business. Not to mention-medical appointments-driving people to the airport-delivering cars for repair-shopping-non medical appointments. Yes and there is sleep too. Seven nights a week.
Then there is writing for Jade Mountains. This has to be in my spare time. This tends to be when everybody else is asleep. Everybody else is asleep!
Now that I’ve landed back in the monastery again postings are likely to be less frequent and responding to comments will be patchy at best. I’ll do my best to do what I can though. And thank you for leaving your comments by the way, all of them.
A New York Times travel article takes readers on a Buddhist Pilgrimage in San Francisco. Interestingly the article is headed Escapes.
“Since the 1800s, San Francisco was the most important gateway for people coming from the Pacific Rim,” said Charlie Chin, artist in residence at the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco, who also leads tours and gives lectures. “They weren’t proselytizing Buddhism, but they brought it here with their other cultural beliefs and practices.”
Today, a spiritual tourist, whether Buddhist or not, can find inspiration if not enlightenment following in the footsteps of American Buddhism on a pilgrimage throughout the Greater Bay Area.
I’d imagine America is rocking following the election results. Some rocking with gladness and others with….all sorts of emotions. I’m keeping a thought for all of the people in this bowl of stew. Now is the time to be still in the midst of conditions and continue the pilgrimage.
This evening we watched a TV programme about a remarkable group of dolphins in New Zealand in 2004.
Pod of Bottlenose Dolphins protect group of lifeguards from Great White Shark attack.
Then, in the process of looking for the link for the above rescue I found this interesting story. NZ dolphin rescues beached whales.
Mr Smith said that just when his team was flagging, the dolphin showed up and made straight for them.
“I don’t speak whale and I don’t speak dolphin,” Mr Smith told the BBC, “but there was obviously something that went on because the two whales changed their attitude from being quite distressed to following the dolphin quite willingly and directly along the beach and straight out to sea.”
“I shouldn’t do this I know, we are meant to remain scientific,” Mr Smith said, “but I actually went into the water with the dolphin and gave it a pat afterwards because she really did save the day.”
Animals can show compassion, and so can we.