•AW- made me cry
tears rolling down my face, dripping off my chin- driving high spped can't take my eyes off the road.
"even a burning plastic plane seat is piece of earth"
• intense dream of W.
—he's dead, I'm crying and crying and crying in my sleep/dream.
Next day call W, tell him the dream-he explains- he's been in a grave on the movie-set, he let them bury him in the death scene, "dirt over my face"…
• dream
weird pusher man unfolds a white hankerchief rough hand made "pills" 3 different kinds- all psycho-tropic drugs…he offers them to me.
I'm at once repelled and intrigued.
AW then on the radio 'when the student is ready…'
how does it happen?
how does it happen raw
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
reading Alice Walker
when the student is ready the teacher appears-
Let me be a listening hive. Let my efforts bring some comfort, a small pebble of relief for those beings walking the long road, tired and sore and weary.
all born into an imperfect world may we seek out the chance to lift up hold on to and support this world and all her suffering beings. May we lighten the load for others by befriending our own feelings of burden with strength.
Special thanks to Alice Walker this morning for strengthening me.
Earlier-
Another friend, novelist, had left me a copy of an excerpt of advice from one writer to another: 'the reader simply wants to know the writer better…'
I'd started this (my first) blog Sudden Prairies on Monday, but in a moment of self recrimination and fear I deleted it. A blog? What for? Seems I still struggle with the notion a bit- Relaxing into concept of self expression rather than worrying is it 'self indulgent' to write to the invisible - the unknown reader? And…who cares? What will it help? One can't know - maybe one shouldn't, that isn't the point, still----
So.
This morning I was dreaming that I was driving fast up a wet dirt road in my 4-wheel drive Blazer. A large backhoe was in the middle of the narrow trail. As I sped up to and passed by, an archetypically grizzled backhoe driver cautioned me with, "Careful. Careful."
The peculiar thing was the tone of his voice, completely gentle and full of tenderness, concern, even love.
Just then, the mud road ended and became a trail of large boulders and scraggly pine trees. I drove over these with the truck for a little distance. I was near the top.
I continued on foot accompanied now by a large thick-furred, mud colored dog.
The road followed along a deep, swift creek. The dog and I cris-crossing here and there as we quickly continued our climb up the mountain-side. Now I began to notice other people, more and more 'pilgrims' also walking along the creek up the trail.
The dog and I rounded a slight rise or outcropping of granite and came into a natural ampitheater of smooth granite boulders and bowls worn into the stone. Gathered here and there others sat and talked quietly or meditated. I chose a spot before a raised alter or stupa-like structure to sit down and the big brown dog curled up behind me making a soft warm back rest. The dog seemed to dose off.
Now I realized that I'd come to listen to a dharma talk, but teacher was unknown to me and not from any Tibetan school. He was a Zen teacher.
He began the talk by example. With out words, he held a small empty box about the size and strength of a shoe box, carefully he used some colored tissue paper that seemed to just appear from nowhere to wrap the box up like a festive birthday present.
Then just as carefully, he began to fold himself up just like the tissue paper into an ever smaller and smaller oblong shape until at last he folded his own head and shoulders into the "box" of himself, and he was gone. The nature of 'emptiness' illustrated, albeit quite literally.
With deep respect for the lesson given I stood up and wandered over to the area where some 'vendors' had put out some crafts for sale. It was something like a very small scale Grateful Dead post-concert parking lot, where hippies or rather grandchildren of hippies sell burritos and t-shirts.
The items in this 'venue' though were metal bowls, kachinas, and Navajo sand-painting and luminarios. I was attracted to a small doll with black hair and eyes and brightly colored dress. When I picked her up, she made an amazing tinkling bell sound like crystal rain falling. The sound the doll made was alive, not mechanical. I turned her upside down and under the frilly white skirts of her little dress I could see what she was 'made out of'. Her body was a shiny brass wind-horse, layers of prayer flags and diamonds. I felt delighted.
I then woke up very softly and with a sense of an ancient passage of time, I could still picture the dream scene as if I were in both worlds at once. My present bedroom and high on the mountain stupa with the little doll and the big brown dog.
Alice Walker has written, as I read this morning, in Shambhala Sun, that she felt at one moment like the Buddha had reached out to her through 2500 years of existence to teach her a remedy: tonglen and lojong practice. If the Buddha can reach across 2500 years to her, then surely she has reached out a few 1000 miles and in near perfect here & now to reach me and teach me a similar remedy: 'Now' is perfect- as in she who hesitates is lost. Never hesitate to give evidence of self awareness, to be a helper, to send your signal fire into the invisible…to let others know and know you better…
Let me be a listening hive. Let my efforts bring some comfort, a small pebble of relief for those beings walking the long road, tired and sore and weary.
all born into an imperfect world may we seek out the chance to lift up hold on to and support this world and all her suffering beings. May we lighten the load for others by befriending our own feelings of burden with strength.
Special thanks to Alice Walker this morning for strengthening me.
Earlier-
Another friend, novelist, had left me a copy of an excerpt of advice from one writer to another: 'the reader simply wants to know the writer better…'
I'd started this (my first) blog Sudden Prairies on Monday, but in a moment of self recrimination and fear I deleted it. A blog? What for? Seems I still struggle with the notion a bit- Relaxing into concept of self expression rather than worrying is it 'self indulgent' to write to the invisible - the unknown reader? And…who cares? What will it help? One can't know - maybe one shouldn't, that isn't the point, still----
So.
This morning I was dreaming that I was driving fast up a wet dirt road in my 4-wheel drive Blazer. A large backhoe was in the middle of the narrow trail. As I sped up to and passed by, an archetypically grizzled backhoe driver cautioned me with, "Careful. Careful."
The peculiar thing was the tone of his voice, completely gentle and full of tenderness, concern, even love.
Just then, the mud road ended and became a trail of large boulders and scraggly pine trees. I drove over these with the truck for a little distance. I was near the top.
I continued on foot accompanied now by a large thick-furred, mud colored dog.
The road followed along a deep, swift creek. The dog and I cris-crossing here and there as we quickly continued our climb up the mountain-side. Now I began to notice other people, more and more 'pilgrims' also walking along the creek up the trail.
The dog and I rounded a slight rise or outcropping of granite and came into a natural ampitheater of smooth granite boulders and bowls worn into the stone. Gathered here and there others sat and talked quietly or meditated. I chose a spot before a raised alter or stupa-like structure to sit down and the big brown dog curled up behind me making a soft warm back rest. The dog seemed to dose off.
Now I realized that I'd come to listen to a dharma talk, but teacher was unknown to me and not from any Tibetan school. He was a Zen teacher.
He began the talk by example. With out words, he held a small empty box about the size and strength of a shoe box, carefully he used some colored tissue paper that seemed to just appear from nowhere to wrap the box up like a festive birthday present.
Then just as carefully, he began to fold himself up just like the tissue paper into an ever smaller and smaller oblong shape until at last he folded his own head and shoulders into the "box" of himself, and he was gone. The nature of 'emptiness' illustrated, albeit quite literally.
With deep respect for the lesson given I stood up and wandered over to the area where some 'vendors' had put out some crafts for sale. It was something like a very small scale Grateful Dead post-concert parking lot, where hippies or rather grandchildren of hippies sell burritos and t-shirts.
The items in this 'venue' though were metal bowls, kachinas, and Navajo sand-painting and luminarios. I was attracted to a small doll with black hair and eyes and brightly colored dress. When I picked her up, she made an amazing tinkling bell sound like crystal rain falling. The sound the doll made was alive, not mechanical. I turned her upside down and under the frilly white skirts of her little dress I could see what she was 'made out of'. Her body was a shiny brass wind-horse, layers of prayer flags and diamonds. I felt delighted.
I then woke up very softly and with a sense of an ancient passage of time, I could still picture the dream scene as if I were in both worlds at once. My present bedroom and high on the mountain stupa with the little doll and the big brown dog.
Alice Walker has written, as I read this morning, in Shambhala Sun, that she felt at one moment like the Buddha had reached out to her through 2500 years of existence to teach her a remedy: tonglen and lojong practice. If the Buddha can reach across 2500 years to her, then surely she has reached out a few 1000 miles and in near perfect here & now to reach me and teach me a similar remedy: 'Now' is perfect- as in she who hesitates is lost. Never hesitate to give evidence of self awareness, to be a helper, to send your signal fire into the invisible…to let others know and know you better…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
