When you are completely absorbed in your breathing there is no self. What is your breathing? That breathing is not you, nor air. What is it? It is not self at all. When there is no self you have absolute freedom. Because you have a silly idea of self you have a lot of problems. So I say your problems are homemade.
Suzuki Roshi, teaching June 1st, 1966
As long as the mind is in conflict – blaming, resisting, condemning – there can be no understanding.
If I want to understand you, I must not condemn you, obviously.
J. Krishnamurti.
When you check your own mind properly,
you stop blaming others for your problems
Lama Thubten Yeshe, Your mind is your religion
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5, v 16
Only with patience can we come to see through the fear-based stories and excuses which so often run our lives. Hiding behind them, or living restricted because of them, we risk not being truly there for most of our lives. Again, the challenge is to work fully with what is present in our day and not hide from it:
Year after year —
on the monkey’s face
a monkey’s mask.
Basho, 17th Century Japanese poet
From one of my favourite writers…
Yesterday morning I was going through the routine. I was by the door, and since I knew that it would take the little angel some time to get into the car, I told her to get a head start. I pushed the button to open the door of the minivan, and went back to get the other kids pushed out of the house. By the time I came back outside, my little girl was in the car, in her booster seat.
In one smooth motion, I jumped in, slammed the door, buckled myself in, and was ready for the … driving routine to school. When I looked back in the rear view mirror, I saw my little girl in tears.
Slammed on the break. “Honey, what is wrong?” The sweet girl mentioned, “You didn’t notice it.”
My mind is racing. “Didn’t notice what, my love?”
She softly repeated, “You didn’t notice it.”
My mind is racing more, “I just want to want to get you all to the school before you are more late. You are in the car. I am in the car. We are all in the car. Do we really need to talk about this now?”
I park the car. I turn around, and face her fully, “Jan-am (“my soul”), what did I not notice?” She softly answered: “The door.”
I came out of the car, and circled the car. I didn’t see anything. No dents, no scratches. I looked at her beautiful brown eyes, and she softly repeated, but with a smile this time: “Your door.”
So I went over to my own door, the same one that I had slammed in my rush. And there it was.
The door, in fact the whole car, was covered in morning dew. And then, written onto the morning dew, in the handwriting that can only come from the fingers of a beautiful little girl filled with love, were the three most magical, most powerful words of all:
I love you
Under the sentence was a picture she had drawn into the morning dew of herself, a beautiful smiling girl, with the most magical long hair.
There is love, and it is real. I am loved. She wanted me to know that in the midst of all this chaos, I am loved.
Sometimes it is written in dew. It is here for a few minutes, and then gone. The love behind it lingers, onto eternity. So often I’ve been told to stop and smell the roses. If only. Roses linger for a while. They start out in a perfect little bud, slowly slowly opening, into that perfect form, before wilting while scattering every last bit of their scent. Sometimes their essence is preserved and lingers. There is a beauty, profound beauty there in the rose. But sometimes beauty is written in the morning dew. It is a beauty that you have to be present to, A beauty to witness A beauty to welcome.
It is as transient as a smile on the face of a child who wants to know if her Baba is paying attention.
May angel, May I always be present Fully
To catch your love poems
Written in dew.
Omid Safi, Love Written in Morning Dew
Mindfulbalance 