I’ve been pre-occupied with multiple fire-quenchings this week and do apologize for the lack of attention I’ve paid to my posts.  Some days practice is a matter of sitting at the top of this 100-foot pole and sensing that moment when jumping off is upaya.  Or when waiting is upaya.

On this day, the global sangha is met with another earthquake in Japan, a Brazilian gunman killing 11 children, a 3 year old missing in a river in Quebec and much more tragedy than one mind can comprehend.  In the face of all this challenge grist for the mill, the demands of my day are puny.

In a conversation with a colleague, she wondered why as a group of professionals who share the same ethics, the same wish for the alleviation of suffering and the same capacity to do so, we can be cut-throat and embody the principles of a predator.  It finally hit me.  Having a statement of ethical principles has nothing to do with acting out of those principles.  Predators move up the nutrient gradient for the same reasons as e. coli.  So with what does that leave us?

Shattered dreams.

And a reality that is  so much more manageable.

Thank you for reminding me daily that there is something much bigger, more formidable, more promising than this small-self I which constantly wants to assert its sense of entitlement.

Thank you for practising,

Genju