Is it easy to lose sight of the ‘important thing’? That which calls one back to sit still when it makes no sense. Sometimes the longing to ‘touch base’ gets side tracked by matters that seem more important. Even the side tracks, perhaps especially the so called side tracks lead one back to….the important thing.

Not easy, yet rather simple, to touch that which calls us back. To return, not having left! A nudge, a whisper, a sight, a sound, a touch. The wind in the trees, the stars in an inky blue-black sky, a view of distant beloved fells. Somebody said on a call this evening, ‘it’s those times when I’m suffering the most that bring me back to the deepest place’. What ever it takes I’d say.

It is easy to lose sight of the ‘important thing’. Because and this is the rub? There is no separate ‘thing’ to lose sight of! (sorry to talk in riddles.) And still as Great Master Dogen says in Rules for Meditation ‘pure Zazen must be done’. I could go on and on however I’ll refrain. And as it happens refraining/ceasing is central to the matter.

That’s another story.

This post is for Will Pegg recently deceased, and for his dear wife Lou and innumerable friends.

Here a poem which resonates with me today. It’s two days after a dear Buddhist Sangha friend, Brenda Birchenough died. ‘The Deer’ speaks of sitting with the dying which I’ve been doing for the past week. And before that there has been anticipation. Dear Brenda has spread her wings and taken off into the bright light of the ‘sun’. This short piece below came in an email which fits the moment perfectly.
I now have the impression of them (parents) having moved on and out into huge, sunlit spaces. I think of dragonflies, that spend years crawling in the mud at the bottom of a pond, and then one day just leave it all behind, climbing a stalk into the air; split their skins, and emerge winged, to take off into the sun. All the old life completely past and done.

The Deer
January. Empty days.
The deer, hidden among the trees,
don’t come out any more
to look for the cold, fallen apples on her lawn.

She lies there, not moving;
only her lips, only her hands –
two snails wanting water,
two dry leaves, hardly stirred by her breath.

Over the lawn, the rain,
a cobweb in the uncertain light,
and last autumn’s apples, never picked.

She lies there, not speaking;
only, Water
only, It hurts
only, Leave me now

And the deer, in the early dawn,
don’t come looking for her fruit.
They hide among the trees,

while she dreams, and dreams,
through falling threads of rain,
of ancient summers rich with apples,
and her hands freighted with gold.

By Mark Rowan