Snow

This picture is not the one I was looking to take this morning but it will suffice to illustrate what came to mind as I looked out on the snowy scene about the house. We are fortunate to have a view across several tree filled large gardens and this morning the trees were white with snow and the scene was still and clear. I immediately thought to take a photo and write a post but I knew my eye and mind together were capturing (/ making) an image which the lens on any digital camera device to hand would not replicate. Sure enough, as soon as I looked at the image on the screen my doubts were confirmed so I headed out for a walk with a view to getting an image. By the time I'd arrived at my intended subject(s) the snow had started to melt and  the image above was the best I could get. There is too much action in this picture, movement is prevalent; the tyre marks, the car, the foot prints, the people in the distance... BUT, there is also the stillness in the snow covered trees. And in that respect it's not a bad picture. The picture I was looking for was all stillness, all white branches, spacious and light filled. Why? Because that was what greeted me in my first glimpse looking out this morning and I responded with a silent  ah! The 'ah!' I then thought, is because scenes like that show the stillness which even the busiest times and places are cut through with; the very stillness which holds all. The poets write of such scenes because they do indeed seem to point to the very truth of reality; we find ourselves in zazen. The scene seems to help us 'take aim for no target without trying'! I guess this happens in part because snow covers up variation and smooths everything out into basic forms. Colour is reduced yet where present it is more vivid. The extraneous noise (literal and metaphoric) is stripped away and we are left with a more direct experience.  Of course this is in part because the scene is novel for us but it is also because virgin snow implies that movement has not (yet) taken place. Foot steps are not present, moving and melting is yet to come... Not that zazen is about stripping away anything. Zazen isn't about anything. Just seeing moment to moment, non-dual.

I had my porridge and looked at the news on the internet. Two stories took my attention, one about garlic smuggling and one about DNA samples from gay men. The first story just sounds bizarre! But in fact it's about trade and not paying import duty. The second story raises questions. The thing that jumped out of this story for me though, was this: 'a former soldier from Salford, was convicted of gross indecency in 1983 because he had sex with another soldier when both men were under 21, which was then the homosexual age of consent'. When I beat myself up for not coming out sooner it is because I forget that that was the climate back then! I turned sixteen in 1983. I went out for my walk.

Normally in a post I like to tie-in the various strands to one common theme and that gives me the title. This time I am going to leave it at that...