Something is shifting.
I have just surveyed my personal library and found nothing I really want to read. That's not normal. Instead, I find myself thinking of reading like drinking Coke: it’s okay if there’s no water. But I really want water for a change. Coke was fine for a while. But there is little in it that does more than keep me alive, or that I appreciate about it at this stage of my life. I want to live instead of reading about living or thinking about living. But I have no idea what that means.
It’s time to be uprooted, to cut loose, to find out what there is I need to find out. I can’t do it while connected to my life as I have been living it. Too safe, too familiar. And not, really, very successful or interesting to me.
I think all I need is a backpack and a passport.
To save my life, I must lose it. To find that which has value, I have to lose that which keeps me safe. I don’t know exactly what that means yet. Actually, I have little idea. But even the things that have value – and they DO have value, ARE valuable – are worth risking.
It’s not important to be important, I learned on a trip to Costa Rica. This is not about finding my place in the world of human society, though wouldn’t it be fun if that happened? It’s just about entering the Cloud of Unknowing.
I think I need to have a big garage sale. I think I'm going to be traveling for a while.
Because I Need to Know If McAndrew Is Full Of It
so excited for you and your impending liberation.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for you, but I recognize that feeling in myself. It happens when I'm seeking something that can't be found outside. And without knowing where to find that which has no place, I'm tempted to change the scenery.
ReplyDeleteAs Buckaroo Bonzai said, "No matter where you go, there you are."
Or, "Daoxin said to the Zen master Sengcan, 'I beg your compassion -- please give me a way of liberation.' Sengcan said, 'Who is binding you?' Daoxin said, 'No one is binding me.' Sengan said, 'Then why seek liberation?'" -- Transmission of Light, by Keizan, translated by Thomas Cleary.
Or, If you meet the Buddha on the road, and kill him, plead self-defense.