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Twelve and Counting
Jul. 2nd, 2011 04:30 pmFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
The river, of course, is the ongoing moment of our living. It is the current that calls us to inhabit our lives.
It was a long week for me… The last few weeks of term are always like that. The waiting, the counting of days started, and in this case the running around on the river that is the internet, trying to make sense of the various websites where booking of flights can be made. It had started to look as though I would be coming in through Charlotte Douglas this time around, because the first time in as long as I can remember it was cheaper than flying into RDU. Was being the operative word, because when I finally came to a position where I could make the reservation the price had shot up – literally overnight – and I couldn't do that any more. Instead, I'm coming in through JFK… it's just the way the river flowed… the way life took me.
I'd had everything all planned out in my head, and Mir and I had talked about it; about how I could hire the car (part of my plan) and drive to RDU via Old Salem to get bread, and then she would pick me up from there. In a way I'm kind of disappointed that it's not the way it worked out in the end, that would have been nice, if only for the reason of having some Winkler Bakery bread – but I'm sure that some time in the six weeks that I'm there, we'll be able to take a trip to get some. It's only just over an hour away after all.
All this week, I've honestly being trying to hear just what it is the universal river is trying to tell me, where the flow is trying to lead. It's a bizarre feeling, having your life tampered with in the way mine has been, and I know there are a lot of people out there who'd say, well it's just one of those things – one of the hazards of modern living. Maybe we should all just go back to keeping our money in a hole in the mattress if that's the case. No… I wouldn’t say that I'm one of those people who attribute meaning to every little blink of every single day, but… I do believe that events like this, that cause major ripples in a person's life have lessons attached to them… even if it's just to learn patience, to learn not to panic… to learn to roll with the punches. I'll be honest thought, the mood and the feeling I've been left with in the wake of this, kind of 'invaded' and 'violated' and unsafe… makes it hard to want to listen to those life lessons, let alone to hear them.
It is said a great Zen teacher asked an initiate to sit by a stream until he heard all the water had to teach. After days of bending his mind around the scene, a small monkey happened by, and, in one seeming bound of joy, splashed about in the stream. The initiate wept and returned to his teacher, who scolded him lovingly.
"The monkey heard. You just listened."
The river, of course, is the ongoing moment of our living. It is the current that calls us to inhabit our lives.
It was a long week for me… The last few weeks of term are always like that. The waiting, the counting of days started, and in this case the running around on the river that is the internet, trying to make sense of the various websites where booking of flights can be made. It had started to look as though I would be coming in through Charlotte Douglas this time around, because the first time in as long as I can remember it was cheaper than flying into RDU. Was being the operative word, because when I finally came to a position where I could make the reservation the price had shot up – literally overnight – and I couldn't do that any more. Instead, I'm coming in through JFK… it's just the way the river flowed… the way life took me.
I'd had everything all planned out in my head, and Mir and I had talked about it; about how I could hire the car (part of my plan) and drive to RDU via Old Salem to get bread, and then she would pick me up from there. In a way I'm kind of disappointed that it's not the way it worked out in the end, that would have been nice, if only for the reason of having some Winkler Bakery bread – but I'm sure that some time in the six weeks that I'm there, we'll be able to take a trip to get some. It's only just over an hour away after all.
All this week, I've honestly being trying to hear just what it is the universal river is trying to tell me, where the flow is trying to lead. It's a bizarre feeling, having your life tampered with in the way mine has been, and I know there are a lot of people out there who'd say, well it's just one of those things – one of the hazards of modern living. Maybe we should all just go back to keeping our money in a hole in the mattress if that's the case. No… I wouldn’t say that I'm one of those people who attribute meaning to every little blink of every single day, but… I do believe that events like this, that cause major ripples in a person's life have lessons attached to them… even if it's just to learn patience, to learn not to panic… to learn to roll with the punches. I'll be honest thought, the mood and the feeling I've been left with in the wake of this, kind of 'invaded' and 'violated' and unsafe… makes it hard to want to listen to those life lessons, let alone to hear them.
