Tag Archives: Hindrances

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sew the sky to the ocean

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We were watching my mother gather the edges of her knitted bed cover together, gathering the loose ends and matching them along the selvage.  It was massive and cumbersome, sliding off the tray of her wheelchair and lodging in the wheel rims.  Her hands were manic and the actions repetitive but it was soothing for her, the task taking on whole horizon.

Frank quipped, “It’s important to sew the sky down at the horizon.  It keeps the ocean from spilling out.”

There were times when being in the presence of frenetic activity would have me reaching for control.  I would need some way to shut down the energy before it reached critical mass.  Listening to a talk by Sharon Salzberg, I begin to understand that practice is about pivoting away from the external stimulus and turning into the inner experience.  What does it feel like to be in the presence of frenzy and restlessness?  It feels like the ocean is going to spill out.  And I understand the fear that can drive this need to gather the edges of the sky and sew them together.

However, it’s futile.  This frenzied activity only leads to exhaustion – perhaps even boredom and then loss of motivation (oh, my favourite twins, sloth and torpor).  And besides, the point is not to staple down the horizon to avoid the drama of a flooded universe.  That’s just another delusion.

So what’s left?  What’s right.

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holding down the world

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Spring rains have watered many seeds in the garden.  In fact, seeds I don’t recall planting have been sprouting happily everywhere.  The Buddha which holds down the world in the rose garden enjoyed a bath in the rain last weekend on his birthday.  This past weekend he enjoyed heavenly waters.  In between times, the narcissus bloomed over his shoulder and the chives pretended to be kusa grass at his seat.

Family discussions have wound in and out of the topic of integrity and when to cut loose the deadwood that accumulates in one’s life path.  Perhaps it’s because I’m exploring various writings and teachings on the fundamentals of Buddhist practice, the often painful evidence and consequences of desire seem to pop up everywhere.  And desire for the deadwood is a bizarre but noticeable phenomenon lately.

It’s likely because these planks and plastics are familiar boarders in my life space.  At one time some of them promised much and, over time, delivered little.  Others were thrown out to help me stay afloat and now,waterlogged with their guilt generators, threaten to sink, hoping to take me with them.  Yet others are new – the artificial plastics of ambition and greed which have begun to float together forming an emotional version of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

I’d love to lay blame on others for this accreted mess of toxic relationships but really, I can’t.  That’s the integrity part, taking responsibility for it.  I may not have remembered planting those narcissus but there they are – irrefutable evidence that I took trowel to ground.  There’s another aspect to this letting go: allowing for the possibility that what is deadwood to me may be very useful raft material for someone else.  All the more reason to cut it loose, give it up, send it on its way.

May it shelter, save, soothe other beings in ways it once did for me.  May it hold down whatever edge of the world it can.