This morning, for no apparent, reason, the train stopped, and I stopped with it. It stopped, I stopped, and we sat in a silence I could hear. It came to me that I have not really stopped for a long time.  How long I’d been riding that train I’m not sure, and I guess it doesn’t really matter. Not now, not now that I have this stillness. And in the quiet, I sense the wonder, the wondering of where I’ve been, and why I chose to go there.

Answers evade me.  As I chase them around and around inside my head I only become more frantic, more distracted, more distant  from the recently uncovered, rediscovered silence that lies beneath. Still no longer, the lion awakes, stirs, unfolds itself and moves so graciously towards it’s cage.  The beast does not rally against its ensnarment for it feasts on reason. In the flick of its tail, I know, I believe that in knowing the ‘whys and wherefores’, I may be less likely to return to that abyss.

I do not, I tell myself, superficially at least, feel disappointed or disturbed about the place I have been. I have been in the service of others it seems to me.  Giving of myself – or is this just an attempt to make it all seem all right?  I have not been unhappy in my exile. It has, it seems to me, to have been an absence full of purpose.

Perhaps what disturbs me, and urges me to investigate, is the notion of the separation between then/there and now/here, the difference between going somewhere and going nowhere.  In my desire to integrate the two, I sit on this stationary train, and it feels ok.  I exist in a moment that is both silent and ghostly still, and simultaneously full of purpose and intention. 

Talking, thinking, writing about this place is good. Calmly abiding in this moment is all that is required.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

How do you like your tea?  With sugar? Hot? Warm? Milky? Strong? Lemon? Soy?

And what about your potatoes? Well cooked? Soft? Peeled or not peeled?

We all prefer things a certain way. Of course we do, and …

… we can practice not being so attached to our preferences.

We can practice enjoying things as they are. As they are presented to us. Often others will try and please us, not knowing our exact preferences. We may be given tea that is weak and milky when we like it strong and black.  Or perhaps a baked potato that is not as well baked as we like.

With practice we can accept and enjoy what is given to us, without comparing it to how we would have preferred it. We can practice not being so attached to our preferences that they become a barrier to our appreciate and enjoyment of what is in front of us.

If we practice we can accept and enjoy what we are given and in doing so we can more greatly appreciate and acknowledge those that have provided for us. By letting go of our attachment to what we don’t have (e.g. a strong, hot cup of tea) we can become more gracious about what we have received (e.g. a weak, warm cup of tea) and more grateful to those who have provided it.

How to practice? Well, what are your strongest preferences? What are the things you like to be ‘just so’. Challenge yourself – try experiencing these things in a slightly different way. Start having tea or coffee in ways that differ from your preference - have sugar sometimes, or perhaps not ~ milk, no milk ~ have it strong and weak. Open yourself to other ways of experiencing those things which you are most attached to.

Perservere. Open yourself up. Release yourself from an attachment to things as you want them to be. Practice and learn to accept things as they are.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Finally the snow pictures, well some of them anyway. Now the snow is gone, and a few days ago it was so ‘mild’ (that’s the word for it over here) that I was out on the bike in the morning without gloves and beanie. Positively basking in the warmth of 11 degrees above zero. That may not seem like much to you sunning yourselves down south but after a couple of days of below-zero it is almost tropical! So the snow is gone, and yesterday after two mild mornings it rained on me on the bike - all the way to Belmont. So much so that by the time I got to Rogers my jeans were soaked through.

At the beginning of the ride I was a bit upset – getting wet and annoyed that I hadn’t donned the waterproof overpants that would have keep me dry. And as I rode I started enjoying it. I started to let go of a sense of ‘badness’ about this rain – it is after all just weather. It changes. All the time. Snow, sunshine, rain, warmth, coldness, wetness, heat – it changes. That’s all. None of it is good or bad, it simply is the weather.

And what it happens to be when I am in it, is what it is. Like everything that seems outside of me, like everything that seems to surround me, and touch me, and effect me – all these things are just the way they are. And once I realise that I have a choice – that I either accept them, embrace them and enjoy them, or I struggle with them - then it is a choice I can make. Shall I fight against these conditions, seeing them as someway imposing themselves upon me. Almost as if they are happening against my will, or free of my will. Or shall I simply accept them, and accept that …

… the place where I am at any given time, and all that is happening to me in that place is of my choosing. Otherwise I would not be there/here, otherwise I could not be here/there. This is MY life. I control it. So I embraced the rain, enjoyed the ride. I got wet and  I rode in the rain, just like I got snowed on and rode in the snow. And I LOVED it!!

What a wonderful treat

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Maybe I am what I am. Who I am.

I’ve let go, or perhaps I am in the process of letting go – of my want to spread the dharma.  Maybe I am simply what I am, and through being as fully that as I can, then that is all there is. That is all there is. That is heaven. And nirvana. And illusion. All of it.

And I am getting older. My hands are different now. Different to before. Different to yesterday. Different to the last time I looked. Always change. Always. Everywhere. Nothing stays the same. Noone stays the same.

We get old. That’s what we call it. That’s our name for this changing.

 getting old  ageing

Just a name for change. And change is neither good nor bad, good and bad, painful and joyful, happy and sad.  Change is happening, all the time.  Now. Always now. Never then nor before nor later, all of those. Change doesn’t stand still.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

I knew this sounded familiar, and of course it is straight out of ‘trainspotting’.  It came to me as I was meandering my way to Frank’s this evening, dwelling occasionally on the last post (acceptance = action not apathy) and I thought that the saying would perhaps be more accurate as re-choose life. After all to choose life in a conscious way we must be alive first, don’t we? So by the time we can actually consciously chose life, we are already well and truly alive!

We choose life, this life, right here, right now, right back at the beginning. Day one. Take responsibility. The spark that is us, the you and the me, call it our ’soul’ or ‘consciousness’ or whatever, it chose this life; this life, this body, these parents, these circumstances, all this, right here and right now. This life.

I chose this

I chose life

You chose life

I did. You did. We did. And accepting THAT is one of the first things we can do to start really enjoying it.  Because that is what we can do – we can really ENJOY it. Whether it involves a job, a family, luggage and a three piece suite or heroin, violence and criminal activity. This is it! Don’t waste time looking around for someone or something to blame – take responsibility – we chose this – accept it and start enjoying it. And of course if we’re not happy in it, then we can change it!

And to change it, we need to accept it – as it is. And before we can change our experience of it into the most glorious and wonderful and joyous and precious thing there is , there is something else we need to accept. Something that once we accept it, once we accept that we chose it, WE ARE FREE. 

by choosing life we also chose death

Everything that lives dies. And when we chose life we chose death. Accept it.  And as I wrote in the last post, through acceptance comes action. Genuine acceptance of things the way they are allows to us to see clearly, without anger, without pain, without affront. And when we do this we can act without fear. We can act without attachment, with no desire to achieve any result or outcome. The action in itself is enough.

The action is enough. And when we accept death then the action is life.

Enjoy it. May you always be happy.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x