Patience

I will wait.

Waiting in the face of the unpleasant, the difficult, the challenging.

Waiting in the face of uncertainty, confusion and disorientation.

Patience – bearing with that which is hard to bear. Allowing things to be, however they are. Not trying to grasp it and force it to be other. Allowing a young plant to grow, by just watering it with awareness, patience and kindness. Not trying to make it grow faster by grabbing it (with impatience, with wanting it to be other than it is, with ill-will or attachment) and trying to pull it up and stretch it into faster growth.

Things are as they are. Mind is as it is. Looking deeply, does it change? Does it?

Appearances come and go …. or so it seems. Do they really?

The play of appearances entrances us

The play of appearances entrances, and like a rabbit in a headlight, we get caught up, entranced, and snared in their intoxicating fullness. Emotions swirl like deep ocean currents, stirring up the mind, sweeping one along. The froth and foam on the surface grabs the attention with its dramatic movement.

The waves and the ocean, the depths and the surface. How is the mind? How is what we call life?

… but is it?

Endless activity, but is it?

Changing appearances, but do they?

What arises, and what changes?

And what if that which arises is so utterly not what you wish for in life? What if it is so utterly not what you ‘think’ is going to help you, or other beings?

Well, how do you know? How do you know what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’, what will ‘help’, and what ‘will not’?

How do you ultimately know?

So why make judgements on how things are, and get swept up in seeming conditions, in changing appearances.

Wait, Look, See how things are.

Just look …. deeply ….. and allow the lotus flower to unfold.

What is reveals itself, though it isn’t an ‘it’, and nothing is ‘revealed’.

And ‘nobody’ ‘looks’, and ‘nothing unfolds’ ….

and yet, and yet ….

and yet!