watching the brushing
paint covering up the old
much like my thinking


Today was a day of plumbing and painting. My daughter is painting her room and I am helping of course. As a painter I pride myself in being diligent and not getting paint all over myself or the carpet or furniture. In fact, I can pretty well paint in good clothes and be clean after a few hours of painting. This happens because I have developed a mindfulness to painting where I am aware of each stroke of the brush or push of the roller, aware of the potential of the drips from the edges and how the brushing and rolling interact with the surface. I am cognizant of the pressure being applied and the amount of paint in the device I am using. I am also aware of where my feet are, the sleeves of my shirt and where the can or tray are...I watch as I move the brush from wall or door frame to paint pot or roller to tray and I roll in the tray very diligently and smoothly. All of these actions happen deliberately and with focus..this ultimately means I get the job done and no paint on me. Now this is a slight exaggeration and I can at times fall victim to a loss of focus and get that paint stain, but in general that's the way I approach painting. I found this particularly interesting today as I spent time painting and time fixing the taps in the bathtub.
One wonders when I get a chance to work at the things that pay the bills, and that wonder was potentially going to bother me, but I found that when I got irritated by the tap not working, I reflected that "well it's not working so just fix it." So regardless of the other work I took on the task of fixing the tap (yes this is going somewhere). So after much investigation and turning water on and off I figured out how the tap was plugged and so why no water was coming out. I fixed it with my sundry assortment of tools. However, after it was all back together I looked on the sink and there were two washers sitting there as a big irritating reminder that while I was extremely mindful while painting, I was less so fixing the taps. I had to take them out again and replace them with the washers intact.
So this is interesting to me in that I was much more mindful in what I was used to doing (painting) as opposed to what I wasn't (plumbing). This would counter logic which would expect that I'd be more mindful of what was new than what was routine; but maybe it has nothing to do with what I am doing, but more about whether I am just present or not.

in a silent room
we all sit and no one moves
many flapping fish

This evening's sit at UVic once again provided a deepening experience of practice. Tuesday nights are very enjoyable. I was cognizant, in the very quiet time, how many of us were present for a moment and then gone again. How many minds sitting within the row of bodies were turning and twisting in their thought games.

It became evident that this thought process is filtering the experience before us, but as we are all here each one of us breaks through at different moments to ground us...the power of Sangha.

The awakening is opening one's eyes - not thinking about opening ones eyes - just opening ones eyes.

Thought is the cellophane in which we wrap our reality, sure we can see it, but it's somewhat distorted and definitely squeezed into a defined space and objectified. Better to slice away the cellophane and let reality fall slapping to the floor in all it's wet reality.

there is time on hand
time enough for no-thing
time to be obscure

The clouds roll in and I wonder at the prospect of getting good weather? Interesting how we attach to that, but these days with all the climate change problems, I wonder as a pseudo Buddhist what my thoughts are about this most recent crisis. I spent my youth worried about atomic war, and what is interesting is that the threat is as real today as it was then, yet the media are not so focussed on it as there is less profit in that particular fear right now. We're more focussed on terrorists and Iraq. Climate change is building as an issue, but it's really too late to stop the problem, we will simply have to adjust to the changes that have been wrought. It should be interesting to watch Live Earth on July 7th..see what spins that takes. So where am I going with this? Well I've been watching animals lately, the cats, parrots, horses and dogs that populate my life and they simply put one foot in front of the other and don't seem at all concerned about abstractions, projections and odd complex psychological games. They don't get hung up. Not that horses aren't the most skittish things fearing a yellow bucket as thought it's a tiger; but on the whole animals are pretty much right in the present moment and not at all concerned about next week.

the shadow is shifting
the object moves by the mind
what is there to see

More Zazen, more sitting, no legs falling asleep, though my right knee is strained from starting some stretching exercises and position adjustment.
That demonstrates something to me...one I was not as careful as I should have been and two was also attaching to much to not having a numb ass.

opening the door
this guy laughs at everything
and the wind blows through

This evening I sat for about half an hour and my legs did not fall asleep. I had asked Eshu why my legs were falling asleep and he said it was psychological. Well I scratched my head and decided that I should stop the numbness...so far so good...we'll see.

I have a bit of a metaphor for the idea of oneness and distinctness which I believe is inspired by Brad Warner's book Sit Down and Shut Up. Think of your right foot's smallest toe. This toe is a distinct thing, with a distinct job and lives within a distinct environment. It has functions and it is living and discreet in physical space. It has a job to do to keep the balance and lives within a dark and hot environment and hardly ever sees the light of day. If you poke it with a pin it feels the pain. You could for a moment pretend that this toe has identity..i.e, this little piggy went to market :) Now your right hand pinkie finger also has a function, performs actions and lives within it's environment which is somewhat different than the toe. The right pinkie sees the light most of the day, helps to hold things, taps keyboards, picks the nose and arcs it's back when picking up a tea cup. It too could have an identity based upon all these cause and effect functions which would be unique and distinct and quite different than the toe. When the toe is poked with the pin the right finger doesn't feel it. But what's obvious here is that both these identities are part of the same body. They really are One aren't they? Share the same blood, same skin, same mind, same skeletal structure...they may be distinct but they are not separated from the one body. So to extend this metaphor which is paper thin and reality being so much more multi-dimensional..you can see how it might be possible to have all these distinct identities running around in a great oneness, but they all think they are independent, ... some are fingers and some are toes. When the toe is feeling the pain of the pin don't the fingers pull it out? After all I can start this paragraph with an I and at the end I can place another I.

no thinking at all
this space is the empty space
sound touching the ears

Don't (action verb) know
See it directly
no form, no filter,
no phenomena of being, but being

watching the second hand
melting one step at a time
moving everywhere

a dripping faucet
where is the sound coming from
surely not the drops

So I've spent the weekend with my father in hospital emergency rooms. Twice, once Friday evening from about 11pm to 5am and then all day Sunday...kind of a Sunday sit really. Spending time at the side of his bed while he was either writhing in pain or doped out on morphine. He's all right now, well at least he knows he is not dying from this affliction anyway, and that a slipped disc pressing against his nerves can cause a great deal of pain. Back injury..not kidney stones or a clot or a rupturing appendix or all the myriad other things which it could have been.
However, in these present moments where great pain exists is there not some opportunity. Recognize the present moment pretty clearly when all there is, is pain. Easy to say at the side of the bed. His response to that idea was that "the moments when there was no pain were better."
He wondered though if it was too late to "meditate his way through the pain." His concept of late being that he has no history of practice. I answered that it is never to late as there is only the present moment anyway. But he seemed to prefer the morphine.

listen quite loudly
what's the sound of the footstep
to the naked eye

This evening's sit was as it was and the thing that's bugging me lately is my leg is falling asleep. Even though I have been sitting regularly for almost two years, my right leg likes to go numb..stretching or no stretching, doesn't matter... it's a proverbial pain in the ass..sort of.
Cause and effect. Cause and effect.

Yesterday I had a coffee with a friend. Her husband died six years ago and she has been grieving heavily over his passing. He was a very good friend of mine and I have missed him as well.

Recently his sister in-law was taken to a small event to see a visiting psychic from Scotland by her son who is into paranormnal psychology, crop circles and metaphysical phenomena. When "D" entered the room the psychic who is not known to her or who would know anything of them or their family told her that my friend was upset he died so quickly with so much undone and that he wanted her to pass on a message to his wife that she needed to let go. That it was ok to move on.
Comforting for my friend.
Slightly disquieting for me.
Cause and effect.

I have stated this as simply without the myriad details which illuminate the personalities involved. The prime details are that neither the sister in law nor anyone she knows had even met this psychic before and she did not invite the psychic to say anything to her, but the psychic just walked up and told her.
Now her life has been changed forever she says.
Cause and effect.

Now this incident would certainly indicate a sense of identity which passes beyond death and adds to the many experiences I have had regarding the dead including my grandmother who hung around our home for a few months talking to our psychic house cleaner...who never knew her while living and spoke about things that only my Grandmother would have told her.

Now this probably isn't exactly stunning news for most people who accept there is something out there and some remnants of us must exist post the big one; but for basically a scientific materialist like myself looking for just what is..it.'s....
wonderful and shifting the sand beneath my feet.
Cause and effect.

It's not of course outside of some Buddhist traditions either..i.e., Tulkus in the Tibetan tradition; but it sort of threw me for a loop when I had decided to forget my pursuit of this "soul" business and the after death identity thing the very night before. See blog...
Cause and effect.

Makes me think a little more about all that art in Italy.
Cause and effect...

the river moves fast
pay attention to it now
it is here and not