A Touch of Now - An Introduction

“I sit here desperately wanting to create something; to say something on these pages that will convey my thoughts, the beauty of this spot; to share my experience of this moment in time. My chest aches and tightens, as if to squeeze out the salty tears of longing. I look up from my shaded table cracked and weathered like the hull of an ancient ship, my back warmed in the afternoon sun, and thought is inadequate to the task.
Emerald green waves, speckled white with tips of foam, roll toward me from a forest curling like a finger out into the sea. Puffy white clouds emerge from beyond this jagged green horizon and float in lazy patterns against a pale blue sky. Leaves flutter in the warm breeze and dancing shadows dabble all around my wordless perch as seagulls, screeching nature’s plan, dive for unseen morsels and a jittery squirrel buries his face in the still moist grass.
The scene is there for everyone present. My experience lost within me and an inability to truly share the wonder may be my greatest pain.”

When exactly I wrote this is uncertain. Why, is an even greater mystery? What I am certain of however, is the truth embraced by the experience. It describes a moment in which I felt the touch of “now,” and in that touch the truth was unmistakable, simple, clear, and thoroughly unspeakable. I was present to that moment and the moment shared with me all there is to know. This Blog is about my journey, then and now, into the moment and the truth I find there.


October 8, 2009

The Middle Way

"The middle way avoids extremes, and threads its way between the opposites so lightly and so reasonably that no act is followed by reaction, and hence there is no need for a Self to suffer the consequences of the act. The perfect act has no result." – Christmas Humphreys, Karma & Rebirth, ISBN (US) 0 8356 0306 7
       The way I understand this, the way it makes personal sense to me, is that "extremes" are the result of our living from an ego-center in which we read life in terms of our dualistic apprehension of likes/dislikes, right/wrong, and good/bad etc. This means our choices and actions are ego-driven and are not the result of a posture of equanimity. As a result, there are always consequences arising out of the opposite pole no matter which one we choose. Like a constant burr under one's saddle one might say.
      On the other hand the "middle way" finds us acting only in response to what the universe presents us in each moment; the burr is removed. Following the middle way allows for actions that are so in line with "what is" that they yield no re-action to them. And this is the notion of "no result" as I interpret this statement.
      So, this is why it is important for me to struggle to attain an equanimous posture in life. It leaves no footprint in the sand. Action responding to "what is" versus ego-preference creates no disturbance. With no disturbance in the flow of life, no action is detectable. I am "one with the flow."
      A worthy intention shrouded in human difficulty.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)