With You All Along

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With You All Along

Colleagues are ordering out for coffee this morning. I decline; I don’t drink coffee, only tea. Someone says he only drinks coffee as a distraction. That’s why everyone drinks coffee, I say, or tea, for that matter. Someone else objects; no, it’s a drug, he says. Yes, I say, and drugs are a distraction, a distraction from the ordinary, from the experience of things as they are. But no one is listening anymore.

The American poet William Carlos Williams said, « No ideas but in things. »

In the story of the « desert father » St. Anthony, it is said that in his deep solitude he fought ferocious demons and temptations of all sorts for years and years. Finally, after the battles ended, Anthony asked God where he had been, why he hadn’t intervened to stop his suffering. The answer came: I was with you all along.
Anthony left his « desert. »

By | 2015-10-02T12:47:17+00:00 septembre 10th, 2009|Textes|4 Comments

About the Author:

Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste. The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.

4 Comments

  1. some one 13 septembre 2009 at 20 h 50 min - Reply

    sorry:
    Thank you to REMIND me – by Anthony in the dessert
    one would doubt…

  2. some one 13 septembre 2009 at 20 h 42 min - Reply

    Thank you to remember me – by Anthony in the dessert
    one would doubt…

  3. Sarah 13 septembre 2009 at 19 h 47 min - Reply

    I loved coffee, the ritual of home brewed espresso, I turned to green tea, I loved green tea, then yerba mate, then decaf coffee….and then hot water with ginger, oh and then decaf coffee again….one minute this, the next that, another minute nothing too much, then that again…

  4. Wilem.. 11 septembre 2009 at 10 h 10 min - Reply

    I loooove coffee.. Especially from my Senseio-machine early morning.. ( feeding the deprived monster..) I see the point though, appreciate it as it comes..Give up wanting things, situations, states of consciousnes to be different than they present themselves.. Mostly just adding suffering..

    Wish I was a poet though.. ( haha..)
    Love reading U Sens..

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