Category Archives: change

The day after…

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In every conversation I engaged in today people expressed that they were very glad the holiday was over and that they hadn’t enjoyed it.  At all!  How did we end up at that point?

Presumably it has to do with expectations. Casinos and expectations and most hope in general is/are based on a false premise.

Every time I’ve tried this it turned out THAT way. This time it will be different; it will turn out THIS way.

As an old Irish acquaintance used to say, “You can’t have every which way!” Still we try.

Oh, well. Maybe next year will be different.

I was at an AA meeting today and heard a young woman talk about the experience of having her first sober Christmas since her early teens twenty years before. She was so grateful for having socialized with people and family as a sober responsive person. One who didn’t drown all her, mostly self manufactured (she has now realized), sorrows in a bottle or drugs. It was a really wonderful thing to witness. I hope she’s around to say the same thing next year.

As I walked along the Vallejo waterfront this afternoon there were several groups of kids with their parents on new bikes(the kids, not the parents), and scooters that Santa had brought them. In kids their wish for gifts is still natural and their joy (mostly) at getting something is quite intense, although usually short lived. Perhaps there is something we can learn from observing this yearning and wishing for things that make us feel better; and relatively soon the feeling vanishes with familiarity. We’re all that way. We can see it in the children and call them childish when they behave this way. Yet we do the exact same thing. For essentially the same kind of stuff. Anything new. Anything is better than the old. Anything.

Happy New Year! All beginnings are new.

(a)float

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Soon I’ll have bit of a routine that I’ll get used to and just settle in more at the temple and just do the practice. I’ve made some good new friends and re-established some old friendships and have a growing confidence that I will learn what I need to learn from my sojurn to this part of the world and that the next step(s) will unfold and become apparent in due course.

I’m a little behind in keeping in touch with friends from Tekoa and other parts of country because I’ve felt a little like a traveller for the last six months or so, and so I have been of course, but there hasn’t really been a destination and that has been unsettling until I realized I’m not travelling as much as being in transit, from where to where is still not clear, but there certainly has been movement.

I’m learning some new things internally that have to do with accepting me as I am, moment to moment, and to drop my preconditions as to what constitutes an acceptable world, one suitable for The Great One, and all his(my) complex  wishes and wants.

Note to self:

Must drop dream of personal past;

Present description of self, and the

Future as it should be outcoming

For this wish and demand riddled,

Foolishly inclined and hope filled

Returner to the eternal Now. Where

Dreams and wishes become a puff

Of Golden smoke that wafts through

The air in This direction, and then That. 

(a)swim in the Sea…

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Now that I’ve been in Berkeley for almost two weeks I’m starting to settle in a bit. I’m basically keeping the temple schedule with three meditation periods every day except Monday, which is sort of a rest day for, well, that. I will have some flexibility of course but intend to use my time here to deepen my training/practice. I’ve gone to several AA meetings since arriving and am reconnecting with that activity as well. Lots of good folks; I find it helpful to participate, not so much that I worry about drinking, I’ve been sober for over 31 years, but to let newer people hear what is possible; in other words, if I can get and stay sober, anyone can. Anyone.

I backed out of hell on my knees and even when I touched the open earth (as it were), I was still looking down that tunnel with fascination. Until, at some point I turned around and looked up and stepped forward into life again.

So, here I am and sort of re-learning some things I’d set aside during the urgency of Linda’s last two or three years and eventual death; and during my short lived infatuation/complication with a friend of ours after the initial period of mourning. My greed for the new was overwhelming and now I have been given the opportunity to (finally), sit still with all of that and let it all find its proper place in my heart. Every day it comes up for me in how greatly fortunate I am. How blessed with my life (and all its self-initiated complications), and circumstances I am.

One sort of amusing aspect of my transplantation has been a kind of simple, yet a somewhat telling set of experiences. The traffic and congestion is a matter of course here, and since I knew almost everyone’s vehicle in Tekoa’s vicinity, I had become accustomed to associating vehicle=person. Now I’m just getting used to seeing a given model of car and recognize that it is just some unknown person in it. It’s the little things like that which make the difference in how one’s life is perceived and lived.

The fish in the water

Knows it is part of the

Whole Ocean within which

It swims. We, often cannot

See we swim, Universally.

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Things are settling down internally and in general. The continuous contact with fellow trainees and constant exposure to the dharma and the sangha are just what the doctor ordered. Being in a structured environment of this type is being in a constant learning mode because the whole point of the practice is to examine one’s self in detail. At this point I’m in a bit of a “limbo” because after next week I go and house sit for two weeks for some friends who are experiencing for the first time the prime imperative of all grandparent.

“MUST SEE AND CUDDLE NEW GRANDCHILD ASAP: COLLEGE LOOMS!”

After that I’ll be back at temple and probably have a different take on things just because of the proximity to old friends and the newness of the sensory overload will have worn off a bit. So many details left undone.

Thank you good friend who is renting my house for being patient with the things I left undone.

It’s also been fun seeing and working on repairing and replacing things I helped build or install twenty some years ago.

Life’s a journey

And we don’t go very far;

Not as far as we think.

Then again there is no

Limit to the space we

Occupy. Just us. Just This.

push/pull

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I arrived in Bay area Saturday afternoon. I’m settling in slowly to the pace and activity of the temple. This week I’ll get up to speed on day to day doings and remembering various aspects of ceremonies and such, things we didn’t practice at home. But, like bicycle riding its in the memory somewhere. In my last minute rush of course I forgot some things and left a few things undone, luckily my friend who will be living in that house is helping to tie up loose ends, plus she was willing to take on the dog and cat care as well. She’s not  huge fan of cats but I’m sure will learn to love my adorable feline.

Moving from a small town in a rural setting into the Berkeley hub-bub is a bit of culture shock to say the leas,t so I think it will take a few weeks to settle in to the pace of everything; one block over is Solano Ave., and I would guess there are 30-40 restaurants in a ten block stretch. Only one of each Subway and Starbucks and the rest are just small enterprise. Everything from Nepalese/Tibetan, to Chilean, to Afghan/Cuban, and then there are some unusual ones. Same with stores, and the people. Any five people you see are all from different places in the world. A rather heady experience for this re-transplant.

I will be posting more often and get back to my previous blog’s practice of posting daily in a week or so, once I’m settled in physically and mentally (spiritually). I must say that when the time comes to make some choices in a year, that little town sure has lots of good memories going for it. I feel so fortunate to be able to have this type of quandary in my life, and even more so because any choice I make will be informed by the practice and training in Zen that keeps straightening my path, spine and convictions when I wander, feel weak, or am confused.

Propelled or pulled

No difference at all

When in motion trying

To be still, and at rest.