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.


August 28, 2010

An Insight Revisited

October 29, 2006 Sunday, SDRC
      The retreat ended today. Our final assignment was to divide into pairs and tell our partner what insight we were going to take away from this retreat. I spoke about my difficulty with compassion. I shared my realization that the righteous indignation I feel and the anger I project out at different people, and the ideas or views they support, is because I feel powerless, sad, angry, or in some way suffer because of it. The anger I feel toward the treatment of hunting dogs, or even the hunting itself, causes me to suffer as a result of the feelings that arise from the thoughts I have about these issues. And in order to avoid the suffering that arises from my aversion, I get angry. The result is that I get a false sense of power. It is a power derived from an attitude of righteous indignation and will always superimpose itself over an experience of sadness or painful emotions.
      I came to recognize that as long as I continue to operate in this manner I will be unable to have real compassion for the animals, the hunters, and even myself. And that any skillful action on my part will be out of range. To have real compassion one must stand in the middle between the two feelings and be able to feel for both sides; a posture of equanimity. Otherwise I am simply aligning myself with one side or the other. And I will be forever separated from being able extend loving-kindness or skillfully administer compassionate action . Compassion needs equanimity not self righteous anger which is actually an avoidance reaction.
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