Watching

To follow on from the last posting (Flight), the other side of the coin so to speak is the stillness of home, for we are already home in the spiritual sense, the journey to see that, to return to where we never left. Recent postings on Jade Mountains and thinkBuddha.org got me to thinking about the stream of consciousness, the river of life. Becoming the watcher, the stillness, acceptance.

The river analogy can be pushed a bit too before the imagery fails. As we age, like the river, we broaden, run slower but deeper. The journey down river valley from mountain spring to the ocean does seem to resonate with the shape of the ageing our lives to some extent. But the watcher stands still in the stream and the stream ages.

The day to day practice of the journey home is I suppose, at the intersection of watching and action. The Jade Mountains post pointing for me to deep connection with what one is doing. Deeper than one might be aware. Knowing at some level that this or that action is an honest expression of life. The thinkingBuddha post looking at the nature of perception is a reminder that we don't in ordinary awareness get the whole picture. We move the center and size of our awareness and in the process co-create ourselves and the world. I am thinking here of my experience in zazen. And then there is time to consider and the gap between where my awareness seems to have just been and now, except now always seems to have just moved on ahead of me... This gap (and) the interplay between watcher and watched, stillness and movement.

(Is it that) somehow as we 'watch' the lark's flight and feel a gap (the gap?) we become aware of both this side of the the gap and the other, for we are already home and yet not(?) Who watches and from where?