Thisness

The fire again. Crackling and sputtering a fuss over damp logs. The dog is here, still but watchful. Dinner past, we sit in silence and read.

Snoozing…

There is no Buddhism here, no Zen, no Advaita, no Dzogchen, no awakening, no enlightenment, no spirituality, no tradition, no duality or non duality. Just the cool brush of breeze through window, the exquisitely simple pain of loss and these words appearing out of nowhere.

The raw, unmediated pain of grief of an individual I support at work. There are few if no words that can meet such anguish. Simple unseparated presence of being is all one can bring in this moment. To hold, to allow whatever arises.

Nowhere to go but here, where everything and nothing already are.

Birth, life and death are not personal

but we make them so

Who are we to claim them as our own?

These miracles of the universe are free

to come and go as they please

with the weather and the birds

On my way to work this morning, just letting everything unfold without explanation, rhyme or reason: the toot of a horn, the calls of the gulls, the bright, shining silence of the moon.

Early start. Still dark. Silence but for the ticking clock and the hum of the fridge.