Just One

Most mornings, after writing Morning Pages, I read one passage from Daily Doses of Wisdom, underlining passages that speak to me, noting the date on the page, replacing the bookmark, and placing the book back on the shelf. I've been working for years to develop this as a daily practice but am still a beginner falling down often, missing days, learning only in the last few months to do this each and every morning.

Regular practice shows me things and invites more regular practice. I'm learning that there is time every morning to read a passage, no need to skip or rush through. The time to read one passage is well spent and does not keep me from my appointed rounds. Often, it augments what I do and how I feel that day. However, some mornings, such as today, I can't recall what I've just read. Going back to it now I see that passage 268 says:

The wonder I feel at there being something rather than nothing is so large it goes beyond my calculation, beyond the possibility of my making an explanation, far beyond my understanding. That a parcel of vain strivings should appear in this world and be able to experience love, life, loss, beauty, growth — it is beyond my ability to ever fully comprehend. And that it should be embraced by infinite wisdom and compassion beyond the self and delivered to awakening and bliss — it is truly wondrous.

My only hope of expressing these feelings is through the nembutsu, the voice of buddha-nature itself.

— Jeff Wilson, _Buddhism of the Heart

Rereading hasn't brought me much closer to understanding. Sometimes that's just how it goes, and I'm trying to learn to accept that some lessons don't land and advance my life as I might expect. My growing faith is that these things accrue mysteriously if I just keep practicing.

I sound like Thomas Merton's prayer about not knowing how to please God but believing that the desire to please Him does in fact please Him. Accepting mystery seems a good path and teaches some of the humility I sorely need.

Tomorrow, I'll take a single Daily Dose of Wisdom again, trying to open myself to both the immediate benefits and the mysterious consequences. I'll likely feel inclined to read another but resist that urge, trying to trust the power of doing something once daily every day I'm fortunate enough to live in this world.

Coffee With Buddha

Everything is Buddha, so I'm told. Buddha is this spectacular coffee I'm sipping. Buddha is the aromatic steam rising from the mug. Buddha is the warmth of the coffee inside me. And Buddha is the music I'm hearing, the light shining down onto the desk, the scratch of the pen on the page, the blue of ink shaped into letters, words, and ideas as great as the Buddha. Eating well amid calm, that is Buddha. But so too is overeating and lying in bed with heartburn and pain in the stomach. The late night trucks are Buddha, even their beeping in reverse is Buddha, and so are the leaves scraped off the pavement and lifted into dump trucks that slam through the darkness. Being kept awake by the noise is Buddha as are the paws of the cat kneading painfully on my groin. The alarm clock is Buddha as is the grey morning sun and the first thin blanket of snow on the lawn. It is all Buddha, which is to say it is all this life and this living, it is all opportunity, and it is all part of me.

Should I be angry with Buddha, protest against Buddha, wish Buddha were something else when Buddha is everything and everything is Buddha? Should I fall in love with Buddha and forget myself, forget the people and things around me? Better I think to bow to Buddha, bow to you, and bow to myself. Better still to invite all of us in and make more coffee, put on a new record, and pass a plate of cookies. The crumbs of which fall like snow in a garden in which sits a small round statue amidst all the plants gone dormant, accepting the seasons as they come.

Prose Poem: You're Not A Bird

In the dream you are at the top of a tall building. Sitting on a wet ledge. Not exactly perched. You’re no bird. Birds don’t read. And there you are, on a ledge at the top of a tall building, reading a book. You hold the ledge tightly with one hand. Birds aren’t afraid of falling. But you’re no bird. Wind doesn’t lift your wings. It pushes your heavy body. Your solid bones. It catches at your book. You need to hang onto the ledge with both hands, you think inside your brain. The one that’s bigger than a bird’s. But the book. You treasure books. Even in dreams. You can’t surrender it to the wind and gravity. The ground so far below is wet with yesterday’s rain. How you see that from this high up, you don’t know. Neither do the birds. The wind gusts again. Maybe it makes a sound, but your dream is silent. You only feel the wind and your hand slipping from the ledge. You will fall. Even when you let the book go and your reading hand clutches the ledge it’s no good. That wind. It flings you from the top of a tall building, from a wet ledge on which you werne’t exactly perched. You soar through the air. Not like a bird. Like a stone. You’re overtaking the book, its pages flapping like wings, letters and punctuation black against the off-white pages and come down at the end of a sentence on the bottom of a paragraph that ends a chapter. You come to rest wondering if the book can fly with you inside. Like a bird in a dream coming rising into morning’s first light.

Presence: Coffee, Ink, Phone, and Weight

This morning's coffee is good. I'm savoring each sip, paying attention, giving it real focus, feeling content. Yesterday, I thought like this about eating instead of my usual reactions to desire, instead of battling with myself. I felt each desire for food and let them roll over me, waiting until I truly felt hungry before eating. Even not eating tasted good.

Halfway through my first Morning Page, the pen ran dry. I refilled it without thinking much about when I'll finish the bottle of ink. I'm only a third of the way into the bottle, so thinking of finishing is premature and blows past the moment. Finishing ink has been a symbol for me of learning the new job, but I won't ever finish learning that. I'm in a middle ground with ink left in the bottle and a rhythm of learning by doing. I'll use ink and learn today. I'm already using ink and learning. The ink will run dry when it runs dry. For sure.

I'm less sure about replacing my phone which is developing glitches. Google will soon announce new phones. I'm curious but keep going round and round about whether to buy. I recall two ideas: wait thirty days before buying and use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. What's the problem then? I wait. But the child-me wants a new toy now. He refuses to wait. His desire knocks me off balance, forgetting that I'm largely content despite the phone's glitches. Can I respond to child-me rather than reacting to his desires? Right now, yes. Worrying about what I'll do tomorrow seems child-like in other ways.

This morning, I weighed just under 220. For months I've battled my weight, with myself to get below 220 and today immediately thought about losing five, ten, fifteen and more pounds, rejecting the present in favor of some imagined future happiness. That kind of heavy thinking gains me nothing but more weight. As child-me ran ahead this morning, I somehow stayed on the scale, nodding at who I was in that moment, trying to savor the taste of who I am.

The coffee is warm now, no longer hot. I sip and hold it on my tongue. It is good enough and then some. That's not a bad metaphor for this moment in which I'm living.