Personal Journal Entry


"For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient withing itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few....

...So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a begninner."
.....ZEN MIND, BEGINNERS MIND...Shunryu Suzuki


Simple as it sounds, striving toward Zen mind is no easy undertaking, for we are filled with self-centered thoughts; we are discriminating by nature and horribly out of tune with our own self-sufficiency. Perhaps the most difficult is the discrimination -- constantly judging right and wrong, good and bad, go or stop, do or don't. When we learn to let our own nature free, the boundaries disappear and a deep flow of just being surfaces, an indescribable joy, a certain buoyancy and vigor. One becomes more straightforward, living life with simplicity, humility, serenity, joyousness and an uncanny perspicacity.

What began as a simple desire to get away from my writing desk and out into the world to read my poetry to an audience, grew into a statement from a friend -- a seed I now know in afterthought -- to go on and put together a chapbook. Me being the type-A person I am (I know, I know, I'm working on it) I cannot just run off to the copyshop and staple something together. And so the seed grew into a published book. A book that would find itself into Barnes and Noble, Amazon. A book with an official ISBN and Library of Congress Number. A book that could be shelved in a library.

A book? says, me.

Yes, says my Self. That's what I said. I didn't stutter.

Oh, but there's no time to send out submissions and all the follow up. And besides, I only have a few good poems really. And oh, did I fail to mention that I'm working on a novel? I mean, that is my top priority you know., says me.

Right. Tell me something I don't know says my Self. Don't worry. I'll be with you.

And so what pushed through the hard dry dirt, what broke free into the world greeting the Sun's shining face was indeed just that. A woman-owned publishing house and a womanyst writer united. A graphic artist (who messed up bigtime but has been replaced by someone with remarkable talent and a super-fine gentle spirit). Radio gigs to read my work. An arts collective that people are coming out of the woodwork to be a part of; several small bookstores interested in carrying the book; a proposal of another sort that I cannot yet speak about and more radio gigs coming to the surface in places I'd never thought of; a book, 105 pages in length that I didn't know I even had; a novel that has grown it's own legs, once a babe in a basket and now a toddler, walking and talking just like me; a deepening knowledge and appreciation of Self in a profound way. Should I pass from this Earth today, my children and those that I love will know the deepest meditations of my heart, they will know the goodness of my life -- a life I have tried to live with fearlessness and grace. That makes me feel good.

Fearlessness is not being un-fearful, rather, it is facing the fear and walking straight into it with courage. It is being open to the infinite possibilities that lie in an infinite Universe.

Gee, think about that. Infinite. Something without end, without limitation.

Gee, that's wonderful.

Oh, yes ... and check out what I found. I've always liked devorah's energy. And thank you, Shaquanna, for this and that. Love you sister!
---A.

THERE ARE GOOD DAYS, AND THEN .....

.....there are days that are beyond good, beyond your wildest dreams....days that every single molecule in the earth seems to be lined up for your greater good.....days when you feel like you can do absolutely everything and anything (and you do)....when all is well with the world. These days you want to last forever.

Friday night poetry was wonderful as usual. Four new sisters came out and one read her work. She wrote the poems over ten years ago and it was just as powerful and just as relevant. Saturday I took the kids to the playground and had an awesome time being a kid again, erasing all of my adult concerns, being silly on the swings. Back home in our yard, we laid a blanket across the carpet of beautiful green grass, carried a bowl of fresh strawberries, apples, bananas and some sandwiches outside and had a very delightful picnic amongst the awakening trees that make us bend our necks back in order to see their tops.

Saturday evening I finished the brochure for the Poetry and Prose Literary Arts Collective -- so now, anyone who wants info can just call or email me and I'll send it.

But Sunday was the kicker. Sunday, I was back on the radio again .... this time at MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY. I took the collective and we just absolutely blew it up. A caller called in and said, "All I can say is....move over Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni.....a new generation is coming through." I was elated, so much so I couldn't sleep. He also wants to discuss booking us for a benefit.
Today, I find out the cover for the book is done. Two loose ends but we are, by all accounts, ready to go to print.
I'll be posting the cover on the main page as soon as it's released.

YIPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!

It's done. It's done. It's done, done, done. (Doing a jigg).

There are days that everything, every single thing feels right.

ANGEL

"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.

...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.

FEAST ON LIFE


The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

---Derek Walcott, from Collected Poems 1948-1984


The days have been sweet. Not because of sunshine (it's been raining), not because of an influx of unexpected cash (same job), not even because of met goals and expectations (there have been major disappointments) but because of a Zen approach to the days; because of sitting (or attempting to sit) zazen, because of the Eightfold Path and a daily meeting of self with self; because of a God Spirit without limitations (stripped of pronoun) who loves me immensely.

Who would have thunk it? Certainly not I. But one can only resist what beckons the heart but for so long. It is a daily challenge and thus not something that can be claimed as DONE. A path rather than a religion. I am met with challenges every minute -- a major slap in the face just the other day -- and disappointments from putting too much confidence in people (or I should say, one person) who was not deserving of it. Delays in the production of my book which attempted to send my blood boiling. But this is the beauty of Zen and Tao: seeing things for what they are and not for what you conceptualize them to be; realizing that every moment is just that -- a moment. Not a major crisis, not a falling away of the Sun from the Earth, not a hole in the cosmos, not the solar system falling out of order nor the Earth breaking away from the Universe -- just a moment. A singular thing in a vast and whole place that no matter what can never be disrupted. Realizing that no matter what life is gon' be okay.

This is a major shift for me and though I had thought I was going it alone, here the Universe once again responds with yet another angel to help along the way.

Novel edits are moving along nicely and thoughts about the next are moving in. The children are a joy and a still a major source of missed sleep (but it's good) and Spouse has finally hung my shutters. Economic forecasts and and the so-called "Iraqi conflict" have settled me into this space. Still researching where I'd like to live but a serious halt on doing anything more than casual research. The children are in good schools, the job meets my current needs and we have a good healthcare plan that would cover us completely without the threat of filing bankruptcy. Milk is $3.19 a gallon (a small fortune but still less than some other places) and gas is still under $2.00 (for now). I'm not complaining.

Namaste,
--A.