So far so good.

Slowly starting to adapt to the pull of stillness and meditation. Through a not particularly thorough investigation of what is arising, (The purpose of meditation is not to dissect or scrutinize the the things that arise, rather to just let them be, and look, and let them move on.), I can see the layers of worry, fear, doubt, anxiety, despair, planning, wishing, hoping, and thinking-things-through-to-no-conclusion; just lift off and dissipate to return whence they came. Nowhere. Now here.

Always interesting, that, because I do invest much time in my life dealing with all these feelings and thought processes as if they were extremely important and need my complete belief and attention. Most of them are, in a way, “Fake News! Not Good! Not Fair!”.  It is good to notice them and those that recur frequently (Frequent Flyers, I call them), can be looked at and examined in other contexts but are merely distractions in formal meditation. They do deserve perusal, after all they are coming up for a reason; they want attention because they are trying to teach me something for my own good.

Also, I’m realizing  again (ad-nauseam), that I have no idea of what I’m doing, there’s no real plan here except to see what arises and what my next step in life may be, mostly regarding location. I’ve been unsettled for the last three years. The 29th will be the third anniversary of Linda’s death and it feels like a time for making some decisions. Since I have nothing to base any decision on, i.e. no strong desire to live in a particular place or engage in any particular activity, nor do I have hobbies or any interests that depend on location. I’m fungible (I like the word), I’m inter-changeable with me.                               There are a couple of things that I wouldn’t mind happening in my life but they are completely out of my control so they may happen, or not.

Ultimately I have absolutely no idea where, how, or what, I’ll be doing or thinking after these two months are up, but I’ll see things differently than I do now and I may make decisions that aren’t on the radar right now. I remember that in April of 1967  I was in Basic Training with the Army at Fort Bragg, N.C. Before I went there I had a plan for my life, sort of. Be somebody. That notion has no relevance in my life today.

I’ll never forget the impact those eight weeks had on me. They weren’t among the biggest experiences off my life but they informed a huge portion of it afterward. These super-cold mornings, after feeding the horses I’m sort of looking out for; I run up a small incline, below zero through lots of snow and I chant cadence-counting running songs learned in Basic. “I don’t know but I’ve been told…”  “I want to be an Airborne Ranger, I want to lead a life of danger” “You had a good home and you left…Right!” 50 years later?

All of it had to do with choices. I made many choices based on my very best thinking. That I’m around, healthy, and relatively sane is pure good fortune, good karma. Today, this very day, I am aware of the forces that, despite my best thinking, got me into the position I am in now.

I’m in a smallish cabin in Northeastern Oregon, which I rented with the thought that here I could challenge myself and see if I can come up with twelve little poems worth a gnats fart. But, my being here is not the culmination of a plan or wish. It is the result of actions I undertook as part of getting and staying clean and sober, now almost a half a life-time ago. Previous plans and many of my wishes and actions were completely about me and what I could wrest from, or should be given in life, to make me happy. Those plans and wishes that developed slowly over time in sobriety which coincides with my Buddhist training, seem to have put me into this place, at this time, in this position.

In this cabin by myself, content, sufficient, healthy (ish), sane (ditto), and have the golden opportunity to sit still be quiet and just look at self, the scenery of life, the scenery of the location.

Gratitude!

Just abiding, waiting to see what or which alights next,

Coming to the earth or descending from the vehicle; to

Settle and stay in the place where the opposites may

Arise, yet not confound.

What can be greater fortune than to be aware of

Coming and going, neither ascending nor

Descending, yet finding that seat from which the 

View is all encompassing and disturbing too. Yes,

Is always the right response

No boundary.