Wild And Precious Life

Tonight the meeting spoke of Happiness and Buddhas Brain. The speaker had a cold and his voice cracked as he spoke of the isolation of addiction, wanting love and to love, and the difficulties and joy of his life. Sitting in a room full of people on a Friday night it was a beautiful experience all of us silent in meditation and then speaking on recovery.

I still fumble when talking of myself nothing I say seems to convey my feelings. This feeling will probably stay with me for my life, feeling unable to articulate my true self. The more I sit with myself I show up for the authentic self hidden but still there under everything.

Someone once asked Suzuki Roshi, “Roshi, what’s the most important thing?” and he answered, “To find out what’s the most important thing.” 

I’d like to share with you a poem by Mary Oliver called “Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?