This September

 It is a time of transition. Mid September brings a mellowness and a sense of impending stillness. There is much change going on in the world and in our own tiny corner of existence DC and I are soon to move house. For a variety of reasons I find floating through my mind consideration of... Of what? Of appreciation of the challenges, changes and stillness... the spiritual 'journey'... Elliot's words 'costing not less than everything'... Recent years have been very challenging and I have often lost sight of the stillness in which the motion of the challenge takes place. Returning to the desire to reach both a place of safety  and insight whilst releasing any such imagined position into the reality of the present ever unfolding moment there is reflection.

Surrendering to the moment with an open heart and mind doesn't seem to be a natural disposition for me. My mind is constantly grasping for control. Yet there is seeing this without adding too much further. Over the passing years since first coming across the Buddha dharma, understanding, appreciation, and much more have naturally shifted. The picture of a spiral is often used to describe 'views up the mountain'. But whilst useful this reinforces the notion of a journey with the attendant risk of an asymptotic goal. In practice there is both the need to keep 'polishing the mirror' and to realise reality in the present. Certainly much of that reality now is tiredness. Hopefully the coming transition will afford rest and renewal. And in that there may yet be more clarity and peace.

 I suppose that implicit in all this is the koan at its most basic. The panoply of challenges each encompassing various wants and needs, the access to wisdom at both intellectual and visceral levels- the being and doing in each moment. And how aware, how conscious am I in all this? Indeed where am I in all this? I hope the coming autumn will afford opportunity to feel into all this.