The Way Itself

The seasons change, the stars shine in the heavens - it's perfect wisdom. Regardless of whether we realize it or not, we are nothing but the Way itself. - Dogen in the Zen Calendar (August 27, 2007).

Day 297. We rode the mountain bikes again today. I am on a roll. Between blogging about my Super Spine and chanting the Maka Hannya, there seems to be nothing I can't ride up -- or down! I guess I am the Way itself. And I type that in the absolute absence of ego . . . .

I am acutely aware of each passing day, each passing blog, each passing zazen period. I am also aware that, approximately a thousand times a day - no, I exaggerate, more like seven hundred - I catch myself forming an opinion about something. This is Monkey Chatter on the grandest of scales. More like Monkey Mania. Monkey Madness. Monumental Monkeyness. The thing that surprises me most is my (former) total oblivion to how attached I was to Reality unfolding in the manner in which I prefer.

Now: not so much. Each and every time - all 700 of them - that I notice the Monkeys serving up an Opinion on a silver slice of my cerebral cortex, I recognize the offering for what it is: An opinion. A passing, inconsequential firing of a couple of neurons lurking in the primate perimeter of my brain. Then, like the wind blowing a poof of cloud southerly across a dazzling summer sky, I observe the Big O (uh, Opinion, that is) pass on out of awareness. And Reality marches on.

I am trying not to be attached to this idea, but I sort of can't wait until the Daily Incidence of Opinions tally decreases from 700 to 600 to - oh, say under 500 per day. But I know the number of clouds blowing through the calm sky of my consciousness doesn't really matter. Because whether I realize it or not, I am nothing but the Way itself.

Gassho,
CycleBuddha Doc