My life is rich in many aspects. I have good friends, most on the same path I have been on for almost 40 years. Staying sober and growing spiritually; they go hand in hand.

I don’t alter my mind with substances and have been practicing Soto Zen Buddhism for almost as long as I’ve been sober. Life is not easy, and it’s not hard; between those two seeming opposites lies the heart of spiritual practice and sobriety. 

Each day presents an array of choices before me. The First Choice is to see the alternatives and act from that knowledge.

The Second Choice is to investigate potentials. What would tend toward the greater good? What is realistic and actionable?

The Third Choice is to be flexible. Can I adjust the direction or course I feel is best and am willing to act on? 

The Fourth Choice (but not the last), is always downstream. Can I fully accept the results of my decisions and see the whole process as a Teaching for my own Good?

I want this and not that,

My way is my comfort; All

My pain is the companion

Of comfort I wished for and

Got. Then some things Changed.

I haven’t written or posted anything in a couple of months due to some health and apathy concerns…Some physical and a few ‘thinking’ issues needed to be looked at and remediated if necessary and possible. So, Doctors and medication, also stillness and meditation; in no particular order, rather as needed, were in order and sought.

A change has occurred physically and mentally, that seems to be inclining towards a solution and acceptance of some rather common aging issues that were fresh and new to me. So, doubt, worry and consternation were active as was the willingness to seek and engage in potential solutions to seeming problems. So far so Good.

I am healthier and more energetic than I’ve been in some years and feel like writing more and seeing where I can improve my understanding and awareness of myself in regard to how to approach the remaining time I have left as an aware being that is trying to communicate something, to some one, yet has no idea of what, or to whom.

So, I’ll leave it at that and start in tomorrow on an effort to learn more about communicating through written words, to others and myself; knowing I never learned how to write and regret that, but here I am trying it late in life, anyway.

I’m not there yet. I think I’ve gotten to Whinney Sniveling Resignation; as in, “I did the best I could, what with circumstances and all!”

There are actually quite a few times where I can in fact accept my role and responsibility for how my life is going and how I feel about it all. Seeing my role though, tends to partake of an untrue/unclear view of myself and my motivations; because the word “role” is laden with a truth regarding my playing a ‘part’ in various dramas as they seem to just appear in my life.

Taking full responsibility means I can’t use the props of glibness, cleverness, knowingness, sureness and some convenient assertions of awareness, as a form of dodging my real self while investigating my motivations and actions in daily life.

It’s not a good idea to declare “Done!’ when more help and effort are needed from me to live by the Buddhist Dharma, Precepts and Heart.

Sometimes more is required of me, often less. Just allowing a situation to flow and resolve itself without my help (interference) is the hardest part. The basic impulse to help is ok, but it rather quickly gets subsumed into one’s personal story and ‘Role’ in that Part.

Time seems the great moderator for my too quick reaction/responses and I often forget that just a few breaths is often sufficient time for a situation to move towards the Good. All on its own.

Accepting my haste, to offer, to be involved, a neediness to help, to Do Something; as a point of pause for looking, investigating, and most of all allowing things to be as they are. Is for me, the key to All Acceptance. I have to accept myself, as I am, in all my manifestations and an opening appears.

In a Bubble that allows no

Light to the Beings that dwell there,

A small pinprick in the bubble will

Allow sufficient light to enter

So that a different world Appears

Suddenly. Out of Nothing.

A week ago I was looking forward to a long drive up to Eugene, OR to get better acquainted with a woman I met at a meditation retreat and with whom I had a correspondence and a number of long telephone conversations. We seemed to be similar sorts and of like interests and just two years apart in age, so seemed like a situation which was rife with potential. I went up there with expectations and hopes.

Turns out that is not the best baggage for travel when dealing with another human being and some known and unknown wishes for a relationship based in some version of reality. Long story (not really), short, I turned around the next day and came back in two stages.

The drive up of 10 hours showed me I’m not the Road Warrior of Old. So, lonnng trip back and fully loaded with baggage of regret, feeling foolish, mis-understanding people and myself, lonelier than I was because it felt like a last chance that had been a foolish mistake. And there are elements of that. Nevertheless, life goes on. ‘Til it don’t.

It’s taken several days to settle down and not be despairing and unsettled, because “I’m supposed to be more together than this.” “What the F…were you thinking, you fool!?” “How could you be so…?” On and on, and feeling lower and lower and a sense of mis-apprehending everything and I couldn’t find my way back.

Then, a moment yesterday. “What happened to all your meditation, years of training, lofty advice given to many over the years as they experienced their own versions of this human aspiring?”

Oh, Right! I can and I must sit with (WITH!) this, and see!

Allow it to just be there, and Here.

It’s harder when I have to do that, rather than offer it as advice. Practice makes practice Real.

Live and learn. Live and be willing. What is Acceptance? How to do all those things? Sitting still

Just bit ago I had a piece of pizza and some small salad looking forward to talking to some friends about this in the next couple of days, but still feeling that “Less than!” which people often say to express a Lostness. As I was pushing away from the table I recited the gratitude verse at the end of the meal.

“The Universe is as the Boundless Sky,

As the Lotus blossoms above unclean water.

Pure and Beyond the World is the

Buddha Nature of the trainee.

Oh, Holy Buddha we take Refuge in Thee.”

And I wept.

In gratitude.

For This life.

Sublime to the ridiculous can indicate a rather full day and so it was of me yesterday.

Spent the morning doing health care, accupuncture etc, then cleaned up house for some out of town visitors and had a nice few hours chatting and walking to a nearby restaurant for a light lunch. I was looking forward to having a light dinner with a good friend who is going through a lot of personal and internal life transitions and the plan was to go to a 12 step meeting afterward and generally just have a reasonable evening of sharing about life and going to a familiar setting with other folks in recovery.

After a nice companionable dinner with great conversation including my own surprised story of a small connection that was forming with a new friend at some distance that I had met at a recent retreat. Then on to the meeting.

When I got there I was immediately disoriented and felt completely out of place, these are meetings I’ve been going to in various places for over 39 years in sobriety. Almost the same period of time I’ve been a fairly serious student and practitioner of Buddhism, mostly Soto Zen. So, I’ve always been comfortable in either of those settings.

The disorientation I experienced was very strong, and kept me almost immobile and still in a meeting where I’m usually very comfortable, outgoing and mixing in. During the activities of the meeting, a speaker, raffle, Sobriety chips given for anniversaries etc; I began to feel more and more at distance and dis-ease. Totally separated and apart.

Very strong current of emptiness, loneliness, sorrow and deepening sense that I was not now, and had never been, connected to anyone, anywhere, in any fashion. That there was no meaning or purpose to anything. People were coming up to me and being their regular selves and I could not talk to anyone, about anything.

I was casting myself out and rejecting ordinary interactions by not being able to respond kindly or appropriately to their gestures and greeting and such. Completely lost and not understanding or being able to offer anything except incomprehension and inability or a desire to communicate, about anything.

During those few minutes, my friend who has a great heart and is full of compassion, was trying to help me but realized there was something quite off and I was unwilling/unable to express anything except fear, contempt, confusion and incomprehension. So she worriedly watched me cross the street to my car and I drove off.

When I got home I was a real mess. Regret, remorse, shame, confusion and vast incomprehension swirled about me and in me. I finally saw what the word ‘Tempest’ means as a mental state.

My friend called me shortly after I got home and helped me get through the last phase of my ‘experience’ by listening and talking with me in a caring way, that allowed me let things settle down and eventually to get some sort of sleep and rest.

This morning of course abounds with regret, remorse and shame because of my behaviors and also not really knowing at all, what is going on with me and within me. I have had some cognitive decline recently and now need to address it at a variety of levels and see what’s up and what’s down.

There’s a good chance that what is ‘going on’ has a spiritual aspect to it because recent retreat experience and some other indicators show me that something is moving, and/or asking for help within me.

Sometimes we show our hearts

Allow the world to see us, and

Sometimes we show our fears, and

Want the world to hear us. Some

Times we just are who and what

We Are at that moment, and there

Is a glimpse at the Heart of the

Opportunity in our Humanity, by

Observing the Kindness of Others

Raining down and swirling about

Us All.

In gratitude.