November 16th, 2019

These cloudy days rather fit my mood: stormy, blown around by the wind, promising darkness.  But they also can reveal to us something of what David Hinton wrote about:

"Chinese ancient sages assumed that this immediate experience of empty awareness was the beginning place, that dwelling here in the beginning, free of thought and identity, is where we are most fundamentally ourselves . . . you can begin at the beginning anytime, anywhere.  A simple room, for instance, morning sunlight through windows lighting the floor; a sidewalk cafe, empty wine glass on the table; trees rustling in the slight breeze, sunlit passersby; a routine walk through a park, late autumn trees bare, rain clattering in fallen leaves . . . emptying our minds completely . . . we gaze out as if it were sight seeing for the first time, gaze with no expecting at all . . . wanting to see them then as they are in and of themselves, free of all of our tenuous human stories about them, our ideas and beliefs."