The Dawn of Understanding (I Hope)
At the point of urgency,
The call to action,
When I Know that
Everything I’ve done until Now
Has been mere Preparation for this
Moment
It happens that I Stop.
And I realize that
Those moments of mere
Preparation, were
(in their time)
the Most Important Thing.
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: poem, time | Leave a Comment »
My daughter requested them, but really, I like them just as much.
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I went on a meditation semi-retreat this weekend. (That is, we went and studied/meditated all day, and then went home in between.) Like all my experiences of retreat, it was a lot like getting sandblasted. Gently.
At the end of the first day, I went home and I cried. I felt so lonely, and I said to my friends that nobody ever touches one another, and there is no body in Buddhism. We’re open to the suffering of the world, stripped bare, and I really want a hug!
I was bereft.
And the next day I went back. In the morning, the teaching was on the importance of embodiment. Worthiness, embodiment, and feelings. Like somebody had looked inside my mind and brought back exactly what I needed. Near the end of the lunch break, I was talking with a friend about the Buddha’s teachings on metaphysics (which questions he refused to answer, much to the irritation of his students). And I said, “The existence or non-existence of god, the exact nature of soul/atman/anatman, whether emptiness has form or is just…” I trailed off, and looked out the window. I would like to say that in this moment of epiphany, I was articulate and wise, but what I actually said was, “Oh. Shit.”
And I went to the cushion, and I sat for 20 minutes, and the chatter had ceased. Nothing. Sometimes that happens for a breath or two, but after a couple of minutes of it, I managed to drum up the thought, “This is kind of weird,” which usually triggers the cascade of thoughts. Still nothing. So I sat in actual silence for about another 10 minutes, and I thought, “Yeah. This would be hard to teach. I can’t even imagine how to explain this.” And then it went silent again.
In the afternoon, we talked about enlightened society… as something to be worked for, not a utopian ideal. Once again, exactly what I needed.
At the end of the day, I mentioned to our teacher that I had had this experience in meditation. “Ah,” he said, “No-thought. You’re not in New York yet.” I tilted my head to one side. He said, “Chogyam Trungpa used to liken that to finding a signpost. You’re going in the right direction, but a lot of people think they are at the destination, so they see this signpost that says, ‘New York: 72′ and they sit down under it.” I nodded. We stood in companionable silence. Before I left for the day, he gave me a hug.
And I was not bereft any more.
The end.
Filed under: Meditations, WorldView | Tagged: buddhism, meditation, practice, self | 2 Comments »
Click for a detailed view.
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I particularly like the fluffy slippers with rhinestones. Nice touch for the lab.
Examining. Something.
"Now, look thoughtful," she said.
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The handle came off the kettle this morning:
My husband said, “Maybe this would be a good time to get that electric kettle we’ve been talking about [for the last several years, on account of electric kettles are more efficient, I've heard.]“
“Sure,” I said. “But I think I’ve got a handle that will do the job around here somewhere.”
And I did:
The reason that I had this spare handle is that when I put new handles on my dresser, I accidentally ordered two extra. The rest of them are being used thus:
So I showed it to my husband, said, “Ooooh, ahhh… isn’t it pretty? Now it matches my dresser.”
There was a moment of self-congratulation on my resourcefulness, and the fact that I had managed to put my hands on the spare knob, on account of it’s been sitting on top of my dresser for the last several years while I figured out what to do with it. And then I sighed. “You know that this is going to make things worse, right? Because now every time I try to get rid of something, my mind will throw this at me: Oh, but what about that knob? That turned out to be useful eventually. Better hold onto it, just in case.“
But it really does look nice on the kettle.
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Good With My Hands, Home Skills | Tagged: frugal, repair | 2 Comments »
My life is filled with temporary solutions. “I’ll just put this here until…”
It is amazing how much time can pass with a bookshelf tucked into a corner until I decide where to actually place it. How many years can go by while we attempt to save enough money to replace the thing that is currently “weatherproofed” with a plastic bag taped over it.
“No!” I snarl at my partner, “Don’t you dare put that there! It’ll sit there for years!”
“But…”
“Somewhere else. Somewhere I don’t have to look at it, reminding me that we still haven’t solved that problem.”
***
We got a new faucet. Another new faucet. And by some minor miracle, it was available in Sydney, and was on the clearance rack! So we “solved” our problem for $60, and there was much rejoicing.
But the real problem in our kitchen is that we need a double sink. We cook all the time, we generate 18 meals plus another 10 – 12 snacks a day. The stove is in use while the dishes are being washed, there is always somebody carrying things to the bathroom to get water or to wash things in the sink. The sink that we have is an odd size (34 inches long) with a (mumbledy-snarrgly) draining rack where the second sink should be… which means that to replace the sink, we need to replace the counter. And to replace the counter, the sink and the faucet is more like a $800 – $1000 project… and would probably leave us without a kitchen for several days-to-weeks if our previous experience with home renovations is anything to go by… which is why it still hasn’t been done after nearly 6 years of owning the house.
And these are the snarly types of first world problems. They cause irritation on a daily basis, because the solution is so obvious. But we slap on “temporary” solutions and then live with them for years.
What I have learned from this is… if you are going to create a temporary solution, it better be something that you’re prepared to live with for a really long time. Because once the temporary solution has been implemented, the problem is downgraded from urgent to irritating. And something else (like the car going “boing! thunk” around corners… for a completely random example) will be more pressing. Possibly forever.
Or at least until it’s time to sell the house and you have to fix all the things that nobody in their right mind would be willing to live with.
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Good With My Hands | Tagged: good-enough | 6 Comments »
