Becoming Everything

The Solitary Flake

Snow flakes falling

one by one

dancing freely

standing alone

Some fall fast

knowing the way

Some fall slow

needing to stray

A few wiz by sideways

creating a blinding haze

Others float lightly 

never in a hurry

They feel that they are separate

forgetting how they started

sitting in a cloud

neither flat nor round

now they have form

and forget how they were born

each solitary flake

ends in the same place

despite how it arrives

despite how hard it tries

Each little flake will soon melt

and lose its sense of self

forgetting it was snow

and becoming everything else

 

The Surface and The Depths

As I prepare for a two week solitary retreat, I notice all of the distraction techniques that the other practioners are using to avoid a confrontation with the nucleus of their issues.  For the last two days people were creating all sorts of dilemmas to occupy their head space.  One man was digging into the racism present at the center naming various culprits, another was listing all the reasons why his job was the hardest pointing out that no one else had any work ethic, another was resurfacing last year’s debate on how to keep the road in decent shape blaming others for not sticking to decisions that had been made, while someone else was burying herself in party planning and sexual conquests. 

 

My first reaction was to get angry with them for creating their own misery and to try to get them to see clearly.  Then I realized that this was my own way of distracting myself.  I was so worried about how everyone else was behaving that I didn’t have time to look at myself.

When I stopped to examine my own mental state, I realized that I was excited but apprehensive about the upcoming retreat.  There is nothing easy about sitting with your own mind for 14 days without any distractions to remove pressure.  I did a 10 day Vipassana retreat and it was one of the hardest confrontations with self I've ever experienced.  On day 8, I was literally ready to escape the center claiming that the practice was pure torture.  Because all of our misery is created within our own mind, it can be a scary place to visit. 

In daily life, we constantly create distractions to take our focus away from the fears and sorrows lurking in our subconscious.  We work, play, drink, watch movies, and find all sorts of mundane issues to complain about.  All of these things occupy the surface layer of our mind keeping it just busy enough so that it doesn’t notice what’s swimming in the dark water below.

A silent meditative retreat removes all of these helpful distractions and leaves us sitting face to face with our real issues.  Everybody at the center was simply using these petty complaints and activities as life rafts keeping them floating above the depths of their minds.  

I now had more compassion for all of their negativity realizing that those who find the most things to complain about are probably the ones with the deepest troubles.  I let their complaints roll over me like marbles on a wood table knowing that they weren’t the real issue.  It was time for all of us to leave our life rafts behind and delve into the depths of our minds.               

The Seeker

To the Seeker who always seeks

Oh Seeker what did you find out there?

Did you find the summit

of that impassable mountain?

Did you touch the shores 

of that secret island?

Did you look in the eyes

of that invisible legend?

Oh Seeker what did you learn out there?

Did you learn to see

from the words of the blind?

Did you learn to dance 

with the rhythm of the tribe?

Did you learn to read

from the hand of a scribe?

Oh Seeker did you love?

Oh Seeker did you weep?

Oh Seeker did you wake

or are you still asleep?

At first you ran from fear

now you run towards hope

Oh Seeker will you find an end

to this unraveling rope?

The wind will always blow

The waves will always crash

The rivers will always flow

And the years will always pass

Oh Seeker your answers won't be found out there

As soon as you hear them they turn to air

Oh Seeker your hopes will never be caught

As soon as you touch them they begin to rot

Oh Seeker in your seeking you fail to see

that what you are chasing leads to misery

When in need, to the truth you are blind

When content, the truth you will find

Oh Seeker stop running to or from

be exactly where you are

and happiness will come