This Moment–All Moments: Wonder

24 Jul 2015 2 Comments

by zeuslyone in Big Picture, Journalling, Morning Pages, Philosophy, Science Tags: , , , , , ,

I’ve been reading too much recently to really write other than morning pages, but this (and a couple other entries to come) have been quite amazing and worthy of being shared.

I woke up in the middle of the night and was unable to go back to sleep. Oddly, I feel fine-ish. The fatigue is starting to creep in, but I have coffee at hand.

Man, it is easy to lose focus when tired. I’m realizing that now. Everything is pulling me away from writing this now. However, this is a moment to practice–as all moments are.

There is so much here–the entire universe–in this moment. Refrigeration systems click and whir behind me. The man across the table cuts into his pastry–the tines of the fork cut through and clink on the porcelain plate. Music jingles on the speaker above me. Others all sit at tables–looking at computers, reading newspapers, sipping coffee, or simply staring off into space. Baristas chatter about the day at the counter behind me. The front door opens with a brief whoosh of air, and another customer walks in. Cars zoom by in both directions out the window in front of me… I could go on.

Yet, it would be so easy for someone to say that this is boring here–that nothing is happening. What is boredom–looking for something else, something more interesting than now, here? What are we looking for? Can this fidgety desire be seen and questioned when it arises?

Really, all manner of things are happening in this moment. On a scientific level–molecules of gas are zipping around the room, gaining energy from the IR radiation–heat–streaming in through the glass door. Elsewhere in the room, air flutters and the gas loses that energy as cold air blows in from a vent in the ceiling–an AC unit working to keep the room cool despite that IR radiation streaming in–defiant for customers’ pleasure… At the same time, customers breathe in this gas, going through tubes, bronchioles, and the bloodstream. It is distributed throughout their bodies and fuels the chemical reactions that keep them alive. There’s a huge amount of complexity to this organic machine–churning though chemical reactions and physiological processes which take years for doctors to study and yet still holds many mysteries for the inquiring minds of science. Furthermore, this complex being is one that is billions of years in the making! Millions of years of evolution have brought rogue protein chains to this complex, self-aware animal writing these words today. Beyond that, there were billions of years involved in the formation of this planet, the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. This moment is connected to all of history. It is an emanation of all–a manifestation of a complex web of karma, reaching all the way back to the Big Bang.

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Understandably, there may not be enough “going on” at the superficial level to hold our attention, but this moment is still a miracle, as all are.

May this inspire you to look at every moment with wonder.

Gassho!

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Closing a Book

10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment

by zeuslyone in Buddhism, Journalling, Morning Pages, Spiritual Path Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The following is my last entry from my first journal for morning pages. I felt like it spoke to many of the challenges and growing pains I have gone through in walking the Way in recent months and thereby thought it may be useful to others to share here.

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Well, this is it: the final entry. The last few months have been quite a journey. I’ve continued on the path of practice with all the challenges that arise in such an endeavor, the endeavor to wake up. Furthermore, I’ve endured heartbreak. Perhaps these two go hand in hand…

I just looked back at the first few entries of the journal to get a sense of who I was at the time. I was finishing the Heartbreak Wisdom bootcamp. I was finding my way to digest my pain of the last few months before and transform it into strength as a spiritual warrior.

In some ways, I’m still at these steps, but at the same time, my focus on the open-hearted way is intensifying. I less readily get emotionally reactive, and when I do, I can better stay present with it or subvert it instead of fully running with it.

I more readily see our ways of spinning stories and creating our own drama. I see this all the time in others, and the pell-mell run towards happiness and away from an underlying anxiety leaves a smile on my face. I smile compassionately, and when I’m very awake, I can see when I do these dramatic shifts myself and can center myself with compassion.

Something that has been very interesting for me in recent spiritual adventures is the call to the mystery of being. Getting past the ego’s focus on “me“, on certainty, on the undying (or rather, a yearning for it) opens a door to the profound enigma that is emergence. Each moment is truly a miracle. We fail to see it, so we experience it boxed and filtered through our own interpretation. We throw labels like good and bad, like and dislike, interesting and boring, on everything before we’re even experiencing it. The rawness of it generally eludes us, and it takes a “doing nothing”, a “just sitting”, to open to the miraculous that unfolds every moment in the universe universing itself. This doesn’t mean that our flitting thoughts are to be discarded. They are part of this unfolding miracle as well. However, we generally give them weight–grabbing onto them and holding them as more important than the puffs of breeze we feel softly moving across our skin–but are they really that different? Do they not pass by just as quickly if we don’t flow along with them? Do we try to hold onto the wind or to run alongside it? Wonder is right here to behold, just waiting for an open heart.

Open, Bare Gratitude

19 May 2015 Leave a comment

by zeuslyone in Big Picture, Meditation, Mindfulness, Morning Pages Tags: , , , , , ,

Gratitude for all–whatever arises. It’s beautiful yet nearly impossible to cultivate. It takes a radical acceptance, an embrace of the world as it is. We’re far more likely to get caught up in our minds–in our interpretations, in how we think things should be.

Near the end of my shift yesterday, I went for a walk during a break. The afternoon sunshine shone brilliantly as I did laps around the building. Cars whizzed past excitedly as people left to return home for the day. I went around one corner of the building and nearly gasped aloud as I looked up at the sky. The clouds were so crisp, their edges so intricate and nuanced with definition and color. I continued my walk in an ongoing meditation–open to each moment without grasping onto it. The birds chirping as they fly overhead… The bee buzzing by me to gather pollen… The wispy, white cotton from the trees in bloom floating on the wind… The people at the bus stop chatting as they wait for the bus… My feet thudding softly on the asphalt, feeling every shift of bone and muscle in the dynamic change that is a step forward…

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Being open and aware like this, even for a few minutes, is no small feat. Indeed, the discursive mind waits at the fringes, looking for a moment to jump in and comment–grasping at further analysis, and I have a particularly long-winded discursive mind! However, we mistake this analyzer for the depths of thought, for the mind itself, yet underneath its myriad words, there is the open, bare gratitude of being present. Before the reactions of dis/liking, commenting, and analyzing, there is just letting be. This ground is always open, waiting for us to slow down and embrace it with gratitude and wonder.

May this post help you find that open, bare gratitude.

Gassho!

The Eternally Wondrous

27 Sep 2014 Leave a comment

by zeuslyone in Meditation, Mindfulness, Presence Tags: , , , , , , ,

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in annoyance, sadness, the frustration of desires, anger, and worry. On one level, we are a bundle of wants, always already ahead of ourselves, reaching toward the next moment of climax in gratification

A few minutes of meditation can be so profound because of this. You breathe, and the Now unfolds. For a moment, plans and memories fall silent, and there is merely presence – the ten thousand things. All is.

Such moments show that the wondrous is in each and every instant – right at hand, overlooked in our gazing backward or running ahead.

The miracle is not in the completion of desire; it is in the Becoming of the Universe – right everywhere, right always.