Meditation

To sit in dappled shade in the late summer sunshine. To breathe the soft cool wind, to close eyes and let the mind wander where it will.

To watch soft white clouds glide overhead. To hear silence, to heed its quiet message.

At such times, the mind does not seem to snag on the rocks and if it does, a gentle undulation of warm seawater soon nudges it loose.

A time to be. A time not to do.

The “real” world seems ever more distant and ever less real. Perhaps true reality is to meld with what is. Not to fight strong physics but to weave and duck and flow with these primal forces.

To picture a world where flow is honoured and we cease to fight it. A world where we cease to dominate and where our needs are met by bending with that flow and using its power rather than opposing it.

All seems possible in the clarity of mediation. And much seems pleasantly impossible.

There is no return once you have crossed that imaginary river. The Styx, the Rubicon, call it what you will.

Anything other than a life of silent retreat and quiet contemplation becomes, not impossible, but unacceptably difficult to imagine.

Simple tasks continue to work well. Picking the fruit from heavily laden trees. Washing the dishes.

Oh – and writing! That seems to work too. Not as a tool, god forbid. Not as a weapon to convince others. Not as a display of wisdom. And certainly not to sell muddled dreams as a cure for anybody’s suffering soul.

Just as an adjunct to the weft and weave of meditation. Just as a way to record for myself what matters. What matters to me and what, given half a chance, might matter to anyone else who can detach themselves from doing.

I have long sought and been unclear what I have been seeking. A god perhaps, or at least some higher meaning and force. Or has it been the path which has been so long hidden to me. Yes, perhaps the way was unclear, not the destination.

If the destination remains far off, the way at least seems better defined now. And, who knows, perhaps it is the path that matters and the destination as illusory as the rainbow’s end.

If that is the case, then better to accept it and enjoy the journey, in recognition that you are already where you are meant to be.

Perhaps the journey is all and beginning and end are merely part of its flow. A paradox, a koan through which truth will shine. Alpha and Omega in the here and now.