Just Now, Today
Quiet harmony
it’s an inside job for all
birds rest in the trees
It’s an especially beautiful day, warm, sunny, clear, still, a day to be outdoors as much as possible. I’m outside our room, on the balcony, having had my morning walk, my breakfast and some time sitting in meditation, watching the men work on the new covered patio (which, not surprisingly was not done in 3 days, as Nima mentioned when we arrived a week ago, but will likely be done in something more like 3 weeks, hopefully in time for the arrivals of various attendees at Situ Rinpoche’s teaching in second week of November, and before the inevitable cold that’s on its way, so that we can all enjoy sitting out there for our meals and visits).
I became gratefully more aware in the moment of the quiet that surrounds and infuses everything; the sitting, the working, which may in itself be more or less noisy or quiet at any given moment, the walking, and now, the writing. In the distance are the silent mountains and the paragliders, sailing through silent air, or so we imagine. The noise of the saw cutting metal, or of the sledge hammer breaking up old concrete, are contained within this silence. I experience the silence within myself in the midst of it all.
Not that this is only possible here, at Sherabling. It’s just that being here at Sherabling is especially conducive to and supportive of such an experience. Like the motorbike driving in Thailand, staying over far to the left and meandering along at 20 or 25 mph is familiar and acceptable in the more spacious context of everyday life in an Asian Buddhist country. There’s time to pay attention to things. There’s time to experience what’s in front of you, in its simplicity, in its fullness, in its ordinary and remarkable luminosity.
We are here to heal
toxic speed unraveling
re-calibration
