...AH, YES. I SEE.



When I am truly writing I seem to enter a space. A space where there is no concept (and therefore no worry) of time. Certainly there are things to do, calls to be made, emails to compose and letters to mail. There are thousands of tasks that, once completed, would set my world in better order than it is. But when I am in my writing space there is no concern about order, for there is no judgment about what order is and why I should go about seeking it. When I am writing the only thing that matters to me is that I be present, fully present and engaged, in the moment that my characters are in. It seems to me that bearing witness becomes my only concern and to engage other thought is to rob them of the story they wish to tell.

I can write for hours on end. It is a very sensual feeling for me, very loving and very tender. I feel as two distant lovers must feel when the weekend romance has come to an end and each must go back to their separate cities on separate coasts. But I linger in it for as long as I can. The papers, filled with scrawls and scribbles, are the sheets that I and my lover have laid upon and wrapped between our legs. The pen is my lover’s hand, that I clutch, tuck within my purse anxious to hold it again. We—me and my task of writing—seem to become one existing in a non-dualistic place; a home where there is no barrier between “I” and “it," “this” and “that," “inside” and “outside.”
We--my lover and I--are simply one. No judgment. No fear.

I have not always felt this way. There was a time that I wanted someone to teach me how to write—believing that someone else knew something that I didn’t or couldn’t know. Believing in something beyond my own self, my own stories. There was a time that writing was a struggle to “get it right,” whatever right is/was. I have had to learn that the answers and “the way” lies within.

Like those early writing days, it seems my meditation is traveling the same road. I search for instruction, classes, “sessions,” as if there is something someone else knows that I don’t or can’t know. Why must we complicate the simplest things? Why do we always seek answers outside of ourselves? Why are we not comforted by our own voices? Why is the state of Rigpa (the true nature of your mind) never enough? Is it because, like most things, we believe that the simple cannot be true, that only the complicated is true.


I was led to a book I bought ten years ago: Meditation by Sogyal Rinpoche. He writes:

“In the West, people ten to be absorbed by what I would call “the technology of meditation.” The modern world, after all, is fascinated by mechanisms and machines, and addicted to purely practical formulae. But by far the most important feature of meditation is not the technique, but the spirit: the skillful, inspired, and creative way in which we practice, which could also be called “the posture.”


In writing, I had to learn that the greatest metaphors come to me by sitting and being present with nature. Characterizations are strongest when I observe people—shapes of noses, eyes, stance, inflections in the voice, beliefs, convictions. Obtaining a sense of place comes from “being” in the places that I visit: the coolness of the air, the washed blue denim of the sky, the melody of cricket songs. I had to learn too, to be patient with myself, to love the process of writing and of discovering. I had to learn to back off on days that the words were not coming, knowing that there is something else on which to place my attention and that the words will indeed come. I have had to learn patience and I have had to commit to being committed. In essence, I had to cultivate a warrior spirit.


So too is my Zen practice, my attempts at zazen. Being patient, being kind. Being skillful and attentive. Not complicating the simple. And while I still plan to register for the
Shambala Warrior Spirit class and perhaps even one of these places for fellowship and gathering I see it more as a study of the true nature of myself, not a seeking from the outside. A letting go yet holding gently all the while.

Namaste .... and Happy Earth Day.

"I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we may succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings".......His Holiness the Dalai Lama.