Look Under Foot

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is "look under foot." You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is of the world. - John Burroughs in the Zen Calendar (November 19, 2007).

Day 231. There is definitely something to that 1970's phrase, "Tell it like it is." I've noticed, for the most part, that my "purge blogs" - the ones in which I surrender my attachment to writing something profound and critically acceptable - are consistently followed by a sense of release and a return to center. Tremendous relief accompanies actions that emanate from the Zen admonishment: "Just This!" I can't understand the uniquely American habit of fluffing things up so much. Raw and true requires far less energy. Ultimately, everything distills down to raw and true anyway. Seems much more efficient to just go there in the first place.

Early signs indicate that Ruby's surgery went well. I will bring her home tomorrow. A long journey to recovery awaits her. I have surrendered to my role as caretaker for ill and injured beings. There are far less honorable occupations.

As I thumbed through my Zen calendar pages, tonight's quote seemed to summarize the past twenty-four hours. When I experience life through the lens of my sitting practice, I clearly see that the divine is, indeed, right under foot. The source of my power is as close as breath in my nostrils and my sitting bones in contact with the cushion. This power originates from the reminder that we are all of the One Great Love. There was a time when the reminder was delivered in verbal or cerebral form. As my practice deepens, I find that I do not "talk about" or "think about" the One Great Love. I enter it. I dwell in it. I AM it. This truth is right under foot. We do not have to seek it, or conjure it, or grasp it. There is nothing to pursue, because we never left it in the first place. We are not outside this Great Love, trying to get back on board. We never left. The truth is that it is impossible to be separated from it.

The lure of the difficult is deceptive. Our culture awards bizarre value to greater degrees of suffering and higher levels of complexity. Something other than Reality is always waiting in the wings, calmly licking its chops. I am continually astonished by the depth and breadth of distraction that derails me from my cushion-derived certainties. The Monkeys' stream of chatter is incessant: "You shouldn't travel. Why didn't you provide better care for Ruby? How could somebody hit a dog with their car and not stop? You can't afford another vet bill. How will you care for Ruby and not miss work? What about upcoming bike trips? You shouldn't be a pet owner. Is she in pain? Will the leg be saved? Just when meditation was going so well, here comes another interruption! Why can't you maintain the calmness you've worked so hard to achieve? You are a lousy Buddhist! What's all this sadness and despair - you're not supposed to be attached to anything! You lost your blog focus. You're writing like crap. . . . . " Ad infinitum. The Monkeys in my mind are ruthless.

I did not have the words last night, but the above quote expresses what I experienced: Sitting stopped me from despising my place and hour. The emotional pain of wrestling with Ruby's wounds did temporarily make me want to be elsewhere. But, according to Reality, this is where I am: balancing care for an injured pet with work, parenting, sitting, blogging, and riding my bike. Thankfully, there is divine power just under foot, and a reliable cushion just under my butt.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc