Starting on holidays today…
Our early childhood interactions with our parents establish our own particular balance between being and doing. Society’s dominant model tells us that we need to be constantly doing, getting places, with careers that are “going somewhere”. “Going nowhere” is not a good sign. However, not leaning into the future allows the little present moments to be more rich, and sometimes the more complex things in life require us to hold the present and push down deeper into the unknown. As John Tarrant reminds us, in-between is where we humans always are.
Do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.
Dogen
As long as we conceive reality in terms of self and time, as a “me” who is someplace and can go some other place, then we are not realizing that going forwards, going backwards, and standing still are all entirely dependent upon the relative truths of self, locality, and time. In terms of physical reality, there is a coming and going. But think about it. Where can we truly go? Do we ever really go anywhere? Wherever we go we are always “here.”
Ajahn Amaro
