Starting to plan trip up North. A week on retreat at Shasta Abbey, a few days at Wallowa Buddhist Temple in Joseph, OR and a few days in Tekoa, to gather some needful things and visit with good monk friend in St. Marie’s ID, and assess what the next steps will be in regard to house up there. I’ve committed to two years in Bay area so I am ambivalent as to whether or not to keep that house. I really don’t like worrying about things 1,000 miles away. So, another something that doesn’t require immediate action but bears some real scrutiny.

The main focus for the next period of time will be my personal practice and how to winnow out the things in my life that I’m holding on to for purely nostalgic and sentimental reasons. Nothing wrong with nostalgia and sentiment as such, but they can become bogs that one gets mired in, for old times sake. I have worked relatively hard at reconciling my past and present yet they both still need work. The future needs no work. It will just appear as the direct result of of how I take care of the past and handle the present. With lots of surprises thrown in as the result of a past or present that I conveniently and mistakenly choose to ignore or just can’t see, because of blind spots and good old-fashioned delusive thinking.

I’ve had lots of interesting encounters recently with people in the 12 Step arena and the interface of that process and Buddhist practice. So far my experience is that a number of 12 steppers profess an interest in Buddhism, but are not too keen in actually practicing. I think what I am encountering is 12 steppers who have some years of sobriety and want to ramp up, or activate, a spiritual practice, yet are content to intermittently or randomly show up for anything that requires a degree of committed practice. Sadly the thing I encounter the most are people with substantial time in sobriety being mostly interested in going to the meetings and sort of thinking the meetings are the purpose of the 12 Steps. As far as I can tell, the 12 Steps are supposed to provide a springboard to a new way of life; not endless meeting attendance. It can be seen that the meetings are an integral and vital part of the process, but I’m pretty sure are not the process itself.

Oh, well. There I go kvetching about something that was just traipsing through the wilderness of my head. What’s new?

I walk up the Stream

Looking, seeking the

Source. There are more

Than One. Several it

Seems, that contain this

Very truth. No matter

Where I look;  It’s

From That! I sprang.

As I run to the Sea,

I want desperately to

Keep a good firm

 grip on ME!