In the middle of all this daily doing, hectic with activity, I long to just not « do » a thing. My time will come, I think.
Playing tourist guide to a visiting relative day after day tries my patience, even if it means wandering through the most beautiful city in the world, the only place on earth I can imagine living at the moment, with summer lovely and full, gently bringing out the best of Paris at its most elegant.
Everything seems to be spinning sometimes, a dizzy world whirled or a dizzy whirled world without end. My time will come, I think.
Until something catches my mind or my heart or my eye – a little girl smiling on the merry-go-round in the Luxembourg garden, teenage boys descending the Metro at Porte de Montreuil and breaking into laughter, an old woman asking for half a baguette, orchestral music drifting out an open first-floor window, abandoned trousers in the street – each one and then from each one another and then another and another, each and each and each…
Busy-ness stops. My time has neither come nor gone.
As I write it now, just as then, again I am what I am: Tu es cela.
World whirled/Whirled world (Summer)
About the Author: zenscribe
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.
I mean palliative care could be important practice.
Today i talked with someone who knows a lot about vipassana (but doesnt do it herself). She said mediation with a dying or dead-one is part of vipassana practice for monks in a last stage. I think it can be good practice not to fool ourselves.
We cannot embrace life really, when we cannot see death. For death is a part of life – i feel now more then ever.
We can be in this still point where they are just both sides of one coin. And from that vieuw it can be beautifull.
All is good
All is one
It is part of our practice: "Life and death are of supreme importance…"
And life and death, as you say, are incomprehensible.
To live fully, to die fully, is to not understand a thing.
With both of our hands.
My father died. In both my hands.
It was such a deep experience.
It should be part of our practice – to make practice complete.
Life is something uncomprehensible. Beyond our minds.
the best rats (and city) are always right where you are.
This morning I looked into the eyes of a rat. So sweet.
It ran across the street and crossed my way. (Workers placing a new streetlight must have disturbed it.)
It looked up at me – straight into my eyes – and waited until I had passed.
Then it slipped into the sewer.
Paris is nice, I’m sure. But the most charming rats are here.