108 Days

You Have Been

You who have been my mother, I have forgotten. I have ignored you, slighted you, passed you by. You who have been my mother, I have not noticed you. Your suffering, joy and pain were invisible to me, as I passed you on the street. You who have been my mother, I have judged you, forgotten you, abandoned you as though you were a stranger.

If every sentient being has been my mother, I have a lot of waking up to do. Phew.

Looking for a place to sit..

Wandering up Ventana Canyon, I pass legions of stately Saguaro, silent sentinels, three times my own height. At the top of the trail, a waterfall tumbles down into a deep pool, the only surface water on a parched landscape. The thirsty Saguaro don't lean to the water; they reach to the sky. Why is this? What do you know, my tall green brothers and sisters?

I have read that a Saguaro doesn’t grow arms until it is 65 or 70 years old. Like me. I am old and just now I am beginning to grow arms. Just now, I am becoming able to use them. Just now I, too, am reaching for the sky, embracing the sun and the wide open possibility of breathing.

Along the rocky path there are barrel cactus, leaning south; and the kindly velvet mesquite, with clusters of yellow-green flowers swaying in the dry afternoon air. Hackberry, cat’s claw, brittlebush and canyon ragweed grow, barely rooted in the crusty surface of the desert, under a blue sky, uninterrupted by clouds.

The broad, spiked pads of the Engelmann Prickly Pear face this way and that, in strong communities of dusty green, offering succor to the brave. It’s quiet. A perfect backdrop for the occasional telegraphic notes of birds, embroidering secrets in the afternoon wind. "Yes," I think, "I hear you. My bones understand. My skin knows what you are saying." Coyote and hummingbird share the sun, while a cranky spotted skunk darts across the path. One slim rattlesnake crawls out of its skin and leaves the old life behind, dry proof of impermanence.

There it is, a small rock outcropping. Perfect place to sit. I belong. 

Love

The Lovers
will drink wine night and day.
They will drink until they can
tear away the veils of intellect and
melt away the layers of shame and modesty.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
Become this,
fall in Love,
and you will not be separated again.

Sit Where You Are

Ventana Canyon, a four hundred dollar hotel room nestled up against cactus covered mountains.

Tomorrow, on the plane and in a modest room. Friday, home, on my own bed.

Sit where you are. Sit with whatever is there. Sit in what is.

March 23, 24, 25

I am on retreat.. hope you will all sit out here then.. in there, then. See you on Monday! --Lekshe

March 22 - 29 days to go

Who's counting? I am. Some people are offended by counting. I find it a useful way to let myself know if I am doing something or not. There... 29 days to go.

March 21 - 30 days to go

Countdown. We are 30 days from our 108 day effort to sit. Phew. How are you doing? More importantly, what are you learning? Of course, some of the best learning is happening from people who are not logging on. I'd like to hear from anyone at all.

My own hardest work comes in trying to practice when I feel I have not yet taken time to 'catch up' with myself. If I have been on the road a lot--which is true every other week--it generally takes me a few days to get rested. I sit, but other parts of my practice committments lag for a bit.

Do you ever wake up at night and sit? Since I work in so many different time zones, I sometimes wake up at odd hours, wide awake. When I do, sitting is so still and so rich.

Thanks for stopping by..

March 19th - Tick Tock

Every body is different. Some sit well in the dusky shadows of pre-dawn. Others only droop then, like wilting flowers. Some pop out of bed as if it was full of snakes--wide awake and ready to act. Others cannot lift from the curling warmth of dream and drowse.

Some people are catapulted through the afternoon by work and busyness. Some fall natually open then, to an hour of leisurely looking, quietly backed into a corner, calm amidst the chaos of a day in full swing.

Some wake up in the dark of night, eyes wide open in the stillness, just as the rest of the neighborhood drifts off to sleep.

Every body is differnt. Every clock wound with a differnt spring. If every body sits when it should, every hour, someone is sitting somewhere, holding fast the vow to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings.

Rummaging in the Mind

W Stafford wrote this pome about his journal, but it could have been written about what drifts by in any shamata session, too.

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean

Things, fishooks, barbs in your hand.

But marbles, too. A genius for being agreeable.

Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous

discards. Space for knicknacks, and for

Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.

Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected

anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind

that takes genius. Chasms in character.

Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above

a new grave. pages you know exist

but you can't find them. Someone's terribly

inevitable life story, maybe mine.

W Stafford, from Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further views on the wirter's vocation. Harper Colling, 1981.

Music is Everywhere

Don't worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

rise into the atmosphere,

and even if the whole world's harp

should burn up, there will still be

hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge

of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive

from a slow and powerful root

that we can't see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the centre of your chest,

and let the spirits fly in and out.

Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks