Showing up

Wonderful day today went to GG center for a dharma talk by RB.
The morning light was golden along the ocean with clouds of pollen filling the air.
We desperately need rain on the West Coast.

An old classmate contacted me asking for a ride to the center. S-C is such a lovely woman an accomplished international artist. As the day progressed she thanked me several times for encouraging her to attend the meditation talks. I was able to hear it and take in the compliment. It had been thirty years since she attended this speakers lectures. Today I could be present for myself. The talk was rich, wide and funny.

This is the program working for me. I have gratitude for my willingness to show up for this precious human life.

”[i} And in his book Being Upright, the Zen priest Tenshin Reb Anderson employs the same verb to describe the practice of zazen:

For a sentient being to practice the ultimate good means not to move. How do you realize not moving? By fully settling into all aspects of your experience: your feelings and your perceptions. Not moving means to be fully congruent with yourself. You go down to the bottom of your experience, as all Buddha ancestors have done, and enter the proverbial green dragon’s cave. Graciously and gently, you encourage yourself to fully inhabit your body, speech, and thought. You may even command yourself to be obedient to yourself, and to come all the way in and sit down.[ii]

“Although no one issues the invitation,” Anderson further explains, we “invite the self into the self.” As both “host and guest of the self,” we fully inhabit our experience.

Time to do some work before I go to bed.