And, the wall is me but the space between is not. If the wall falls down its just a seeming separation of space that is eliminated. A cup holds tea but when it breaks the space is still there, and so forth. The ideas and teachings about spaciousness have been part of Buddhist teachings since the Buddha’s time and they are almost ubiquitous to the point that we don’t often actually explore some of the applications of that teaching in our practice.

All that our, or any, practice consists of is trying to do it. To live it. To see and understand it and make it part of our lives to the point we may no longer think about it too much. I’m not at that point, but I do get some glimpses at times of how things are.

(BTW, great article in current issue of Berkeleybuddhistpriory.org Newsletter by Reverend Master Kinrei on “Spaciousness”)

This morning as I sat still, facing a wall and realizing once again the only real control I have over my own mind is to refrain from digging into any thought too much, and to try and let them pass through me without handling them as items of possible interest, as if in some second-hand store.

This morning’s theme seemed to be about the difficulty of my believing that things running through my mind were important and others should have a chance of being exposed to them in order to enrich their lives.

Try this one, loosely recapitulated.

…If Feminists really cared about females, they would care about every female of every species and how they are being used to gratify many delusions regarding the human role on earth. We breed dogs and have killed billions of them through the centuries developing different breeds with characteristic we find useful including just plain old cuteness. It’s the same with cattle, horses, sheep and loads of creatures we eat or use in any fashion. We eat cows. we eat chickens and their eggs, and so forth and all of them have to be bred to suit us. We don’t eat dogs in our culture but many others do. Most dogs have been bred to suit some purpose for us that results in either food, pleasure, or working them ’til they drop dead. Why can’t we see that within the structure of seeing animals as only for the purpose of our use, in any fashion we choose, no matter how much suffering it causes them, may not be Ethical. I suppose they study or touch on this stuff in Ethics Studies, or whatever its called, but it never comes up in cultural or social medias as a “Thing” …

So that was the type of thinking that tried to capture me this morning and I had to leave loose of it, and apparently it ain’t gone away. It is just a thought, and we do have to start somewhere.

I was thinking I could

Change the world if

Only it would listen to

Me and then ask for

Instructions as to How.

However, it seems that

The world’s a busy place

And, I’m really not sure

I know enough. It’s not

Doubt but Reality that

Eases the clawing Need

To make things Better.