How fascinating it has been these last two days to go through this blog adding on labels or tags to each post, giving a signpost to what is contained within. It’s been fascinating reading snippets of so many of these postings, seeing what I was doing, and more importantly, seeing how I was experiencing things throughout these years.
And fascinating indeed to see which labels come up most frequently in my posts. That clearly gives some indication of the notions that I am particularly interested in in my life – those things that I care about and wish to express here.
It’s almost like a league-table of what my life is about! (the league table is over on the right sidebar, if you wish to see)
As if a mirror has been held up, and suddenly revealed my life, in all its (in)glory!
I’ve recently been delving back into ‘A Path with Heart’ by Jack Kornfield after many years, and once again came across this lovely aphorism. He relates how when one is lying on your deathbed you are unlikely to be thinking ‘did I stay late enough at work that night’, or ‘did I earn enough’ .. but much more likely these three questions in the quotation.
Many, many times I’ve reflected on this, and come back to this fundamental point about life. It says so much about what we put our energy into, and whether that’s really what we want our life to be about.
And much like Buddha’s
“Cease to do evil,
do good,
purify the heart”
this most pithy aphorism contains so much in the way of guidelines to practice, encompassing the whole path.
Well, did I? Do I? Will I?
What a beautiful thing this journey is, bitter or sweet it appears to be …..
Following on from yesterday’s reflection on the simple pleasure of sitting, just sitting – it struck me today how odd it is in a way that I can get so much joy from just looking at trees, the sky and the wind. I’d just finished meditating yesterday, and looked up and out at the trees. I was fascinated by how ‘blue’ the sky was, how verdant the green of the new leaves on the trees was, how wondrous the shapes that the leaves made against the sky, and how lovely the movement of the leaves and branches against the backdrop of the blue sky.
I had this sense of completeness, of needing nothing, and just content to be where I was, enjoying what was.
How odd? … why odd? … well, in a way, wouldn’t most people think it really odd that I was sitting there, looking at trees with a funny smile on my face? Where was my cigarette, or chatter, or planning, or entertainment from iPods and other gadgets?
iPod
What struck me in particular was that at that moment, I didn’t need all these technological marvels that we’ve invented in order to give us pleasure. I didn’t need entertainment from things that were complex, that I had to strive to buy, or which took a lot of work or conditions to acquire. All I needed at that moment was? … well, not a lot really. Simple pleasure in being right where I was, in the present, fully open to what was around me, and within, or wherever any of that actually is.
Like the old adage of the person with the jewel on their person, who’d not known that they have this wealth there all the time, unbeknownst to them …. I felt a recognition today that contentment was right there – simply there all the time, should we want it. We don’t actually need all that other stuff to make us feel good. Just open to what is, don’t push and pull at it with want and don’t want .. just open to the texture of what is there, fully, with an open heart, and right there and then, in whatever it is, anger, happiness, complexity, simplicity …. whatever it seems to be … open to what is … and it’s all same taste, all one taste, all both wondrously apparent and beguiling, yet utterly empty and ineffable, and extraordinarily mysterious. How beautiful, however it is ….
