Boring!

Meh:  The near enemy of equanimity.  


My practice is in a challenging place.  There was this place I called "dormant", suggesting some subterranean life somewhere.  Now it's full-on, undeniable "boring."  A dry, irritable place.  Desert metaphors do not do justice, for in deserts, there are potentially dangerous creatures, and those are interesting.    


One of the more recent expressions of this boredom is suddenly becoming enamored with another credential; flirting with the idea of getting into a counseling-related program which includes dream work, and art, and archetype study.  A 2-year training program, which I suppose I would be doing on top of the 3-year Buddhist study and leadership program several of us lay practitioners have just started with Hogen called Sanghakai.   

I sat down to blog about all this, and then realized a beautiful Portland spring evening was slipping away.  So I went out and took a walk to our new Temple (not yet open for business, but soon), which takes about an hour at a gentle pace.  

The world offers its sights, sounds of baseball games, dogs, and traffic, the smells of people's dinner cooking and laundry drying, and just feeling the sidewalk underfoot.    

 There are two kitties in the above photo!

Day of Mindfulness

I got to lead a Day of Mindfulness today. I was inspired to write something poem-like. Enjoy!

"Day of Mindfulness"

I got to see the sunlight fall just right

along the corkscrew filbert

I got to feel the gentle attention

of the breeze and

watch the pansies

nodding and shaking their heads,

“Yes! No!”

I got to lift my nose to the smell of blooming and

with a glance, by chance

I got to catch the moment the spider’s web

caught the air and with

complete faith in the wind and

complete confidence in herself

up up up

she flew with no discernible way to steer

Apparently the pear leaves became

three inches long in the night, and

today I got to see them. Each one.

I got to hear the neighbors fire up their lawn mowers and

I got to watch judgment and irritation

streak across like comets.

I got to feel tiredness behind my eyes

and I got to

get chilly as the sun went down.

I got to sit quietly and see clearly and melt,

grateful into this world.

Worldly Matters

Spring morning on the lake:
the wind merges with the rain,
Worldly matters are like flowers that fall
only to bloom again.
I retire to contemplate behind closed doors,
a place of true joy,
While the floating clouds come and go
the whole day long.

~Zhengjue
12th Century Chinese Buddhist Nun

from the book, Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns, by Beata Grant

dipping a toe in the blogosphere

Testing the Bloggy waters.


Here's a picture.

The pear trees in the backyard have been magnificent, and the coolness of this Spring has lengthened the time of their existence.