day three – bright dharma

Toast, yogurt, and eggs for breakfast. A medium Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with cream and sugar. So much for rice gruel. Still, I feel like I’m making progress. This morning, Saturday, I had no schedule, no timetable. I walked downtown with my three-year old son on my shoulders and realized that everything is the perfect, bright Buddhadharma. The sun was shining in the blue cloudless sky. We did errands together. Returning bottles at the grocery store, saying hello to neighbors, going to the sporting goods store to buy a pouch of “baseball gum,” even the dirty dishes in the sink, the messy house, the unraked yard, and the unmade bed all perfect in themselves, asking nothing, desiring nothing. Lately, I was getting depressed again, feeling like Tanzan, sending out my thoughts into the great silence of the internet. But today, even that silence echoing back to me was perfect. No mirror, no dust alighting. Today, I was filled with happiness for about three hours straight. I tried to think of a reason for why I should be so happy. Did I need a reason? I almost felt guilty for my happiness. Shouldn’t something be wrong, shouldn’t I be troubled? But no, no reasons came for my joy. It was just there, just so, with no restrictions. So now I say to you: Put down your questions, put down your striving, put down your doubt, put down your worry. As it says in the Heart Sutra, “There is no wisdom and no attainment. There is nothing to be attained.” Everything is perfect exactly as it is right now.

back from the woods

Sorry to go all all Tanzan on you like that, but sometimes a guy just needs to get away. Where did I go, you may ask? The easy, but untruthful answer would be to say something like “I was swimming in Walden Pond,” or “I was busy becoming a Buddhist, Rastafarian, Gospel-of-Thomas Christian.” (This might actually be true, since that’s about what I am) But the real answer is that for the longest time I just didn’t have anything to say. Frankly, I don’t know how these professional bloggers do it. Something new every day? My mind doesn’t work that way, I guess. But for the longest time, there was something missing in my life, and I realized it was creative expression. So I’m going to try a new tact, and perhaps be a little more experimental with this blog. Maybe I’ll throw in some poetry or a few more photographs. We shall see. I’m working on a few things right now that I’ll hopefully be able to share with you shortly. As I look out my window right now, I see snowflakes swirling down from the sky. It’s mid-March, and somehow these snowflakes seem unfair. This has been a cruel winter. I can’t afford to heat my tiny house, the front end of my ancient Accord is making scary noises, and my feet are always cold no matter how many pairs of Smartwools I put on. But I have my health, my family, my Buddha nature, and now, once again, I have my blog. Henry’s back from the woods.