Each night the stars watch over the remnants of a busy day. It may have been an ordinary day. It may have been a good day, or it may have been a day like today.
Today I had one of the most difficult days I have had in 12 years of teaching. My day lasted, without stop for over 15 hours. Some moments were beautiful, but the core of the work day was very intense. There were moments when I felt like I could not breath, and as though there was no space. I found myself deep inside difficult situations that I was involved in creating, one way or another.
As I pulled up to my home, with my children sleeping inside and my wife patiently awaiting my return. As I looked up at the stars I saw the thread of my life. These same stars looked down on me as I walked home from my first high school dance in grade 9, where I had my first real kiss. the watched over me I as I sat in the center of york, England at the age of 17, waiting for my cousin to find us a room for the night. They watched as I travelled home from the hospital the day my Father died of a heart attack. No matter the content of my days, they have watched me, steady and constant.
In the night sky, I see God.
In the night sky I see my very life.
In night sky I see the unblemished.
In the night sky I see that which sustains me.
Because of this, even on a cloudy night, I can see the night sky.
When I sit in zazen, there is a particular flavour to the moment in which I realze that I have zoomed in on a train of thought and I am able to release it, opening up to the whole of the moment. Passing through the difficulties of today had a similar taste. As they unfolded, there were times when I was zoomed in on the difficulties, and they filled the universe. When I relaxed; when I zoomed out these moments (though still important and needing to be dealt with) could be seen as part of a rich and dynamic fabric that was today.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Inexhaustable
I love this practice. It nourishes me, challenges me and keeps sending me back to my center. I am immensely grateful for the many circumstances that have lead me to this point in my life. What is standing out to me today, are the boundless opportunities my life is presenting me with these days, in which I can be of service.
This fall is the busiest I have seen in many years. Work, family, coaching, training and teaching Aikido, the Amherstburg Zen Meditation Group and the Toledo Zen Center. Inside each of these environments there are demands on time, attention and emotional energy. In the past, I have been ground down by less.
In addition to an incredibly supportive wife, I am finding great comfort and stability in the support that my practice gives me. Rooted in sitting and the bodhisattva path, I am not exhausted by this life. It feeds me. Present in each moment as a practice (no different in essence than sesshin) I am at home in the world as it is, seeking to help. In the terms of my Christian faith, I feel God's hand supporting me. In the silence I hear His voice.
Though dinner is on the table, one child doing homework, the other practicing piano, and the impending need to leave for class, there is a stillness that is perceiveable. I do not have a name for it, but I can feel it on me like my own skin. It flows through me like blood.
This is how I feel today. May I engage this life fully.
This fall is the busiest I have seen in many years. Work, family, coaching, training and teaching Aikido, the Amherstburg Zen Meditation Group and the Toledo Zen Center. Inside each of these environments there are demands on time, attention and emotional energy. In the past, I have been ground down by less.
In addition to an incredibly supportive wife, I am finding great comfort and stability in the support that my practice gives me. Rooted in sitting and the bodhisattva path, I am not exhausted by this life. It feeds me. Present in each moment as a practice (no different in essence than sesshin) I am at home in the world as it is, seeking to help. In the terms of my Christian faith, I feel God's hand supporting me. In the silence I hear His voice.
Though dinner is on the table, one child doing homework, the other practicing piano, and the impending need to leave for class, there is a stillness that is perceiveable. I do not have a name for it, but I can feel it on me like my own skin. It flows through me like blood.
This is how I feel today. May I engage this life fully.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Thank you Qui-Gon Jinn
I wasn't feeling so hot this afternoon, so while the girls went out to a family pool party I curled up on the couch and watch Star Was: Phantom Menace. Now, while I will admit that I am asucker for anything from the Star Wars, Star Trek and Monty Python franchises, I really do like the Jedi. Even before I read about how George Lucas had modeled various groups after different Earthly cultures, I could tell that there was a lot of Zen Buddhism in the Jedi code.
This afternoon, the line that stuck with me is one of my all time favorites. Speaking to a very young Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon says "Always remember, your focus determines your reality". For me, this is a time of year when the opportunity to engage this practice is made very obvious.
As I get ready to go back to work this week, I feel a lot of things. I have enjoyed the summer with my family and going back to work means that I have less time each day that I can dedicate to them, but this is something I have learned to take in stride. What is interesting about returning to school is that there are no feelings that sit on the fence. For me, the experience of returning to school is very polarized.
On the one hand I love working with the kids. These days I teach special needs students at the high school level, and they are wonderful. I have never worked with a group of young people who are so open and joyful about what the day has to offer. Sometimes things don't go well, but they have great capacity for moving on to the next thing. In fact, the school as a whole is full of "potential energy" in September. Just walking through the halls energizes me.
On the other hand, there are difficult people to. People who seem bound and determined to be unhappy and who want to spread their negativity.
When I am at my worste, I walk down the hall and I can only see the dark energy. Surrounded by hundreds of people, I only perceive the negative ones. So for a long time, I set out to see only the good. I worked very hard at cultivating the ability to see the positive and to use them to blockout the negative. However, this never worked. Invariably something bad would happen to shatter my utopian day dream, whether it was a fight, and argument, or people who just want to swim up stream.
What my practice has helped me see, is that a true focus includes all these people and their stories. Things may not be perfect (in a building with over 1000 teenagers, really?), but they are never as bad as the worst of it would indicate. When I can pull back my focus to include all of the students and the staff, what I find is an enormous and detail mosaic. It is a movie with a cast of 1000's and each is the principle character. Every day is the best day, and the worst day for someone in the building.
My hope and practice for this school year is to encounter all of them as they are, in the time, place, condition and degree in which I find them.
I love being a teacher. It is how I keep learning.
This afternoon, the line that stuck with me is one of my all time favorites. Speaking to a very young Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon says "Always remember, your focus determines your reality". For me, this is a time of year when the opportunity to engage this practice is made very obvious.
As I get ready to go back to work this week, I feel a lot of things. I have enjoyed the summer with my family and going back to work means that I have less time each day that I can dedicate to them, but this is something I have learned to take in stride. What is interesting about returning to school is that there are no feelings that sit on the fence. For me, the experience of returning to school is very polarized.
On the one hand I love working with the kids. These days I teach special needs students at the high school level, and they are wonderful. I have never worked with a group of young people who are so open and joyful about what the day has to offer. Sometimes things don't go well, but they have great capacity for moving on to the next thing. In fact, the school as a whole is full of "potential energy" in September. Just walking through the halls energizes me.
On the other hand, there are difficult people to. People who seem bound and determined to be unhappy and who want to spread their negativity.
When I am at my worste, I walk down the hall and I can only see the dark energy. Surrounded by hundreds of people, I only perceive the negative ones. So for a long time, I set out to see only the good. I worked very hard at cultivating the ability to see the positive and to use them to blockout the negative. However, this never worked. Invariably something bad would happen to shatter my utopian day dream, whether it was a fight, and argument, or people who just want to swim up stream.
What my practice has helped me see, is that a true focus includes all these people and their stories. Things may not be perfect (in a building with over 1000 teenagers, really?), but they are never as bad as the worst of it would indicate. When I can pull back my focus to include all of the students and the staff, what I find is an enormous and detail mosaic. It is a movie with a cast of 1000's and each is the principle character. Every day is the best day, and the worst day for someone in the building.
My hope and practice for this school year is to encounter all of them as they are, in the time, place, condition and degree in which I find them.
I love being a teacher. It is how I keep learning.
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