I feel like I've been talking too much about what's been happening with me and how I've been perceiving the world. Too much explanation creates an idea of a thing, which distracts from the reality of the thing itself, and diminshes the rich Is-ness.
That's part of it, too, I think.
There's a Chinese story I've always liked. There's a farmer, and his horse runs away into the mountains. The neighbors console him on his bad luck, and he says, "Bad luck? Who knows?". The horse comes back leading five mares, and the neighbors congratulate him. "Good luck? Who knows?". One of the mares goes mad and breaks his son's leg. "Bad luck? Who knows?". And then one day the army came to take all the young men for war, and because the son's leg was broken, he was spared.
See, Friday I took my eye off the ball and got all hot-shit ego about work, and today that took a hit. I'm back to normal now, but see what happens? I got caught up in "I can do this" instead of "This is a thing I can do to let me support myself and do truly important things like go to aikido seminars". It's like the Triangle Talk: if your focus is on yourself and your desires instead of something greater, you're doomed. Trying to satisfy your senses is like eating a big box of lollipops when you're starving. Trying to satisfy your senses is not the same as exploring them or exercising them...the search for satisfaction is the search for one thing that we think will be ultimately fulfilling. It's a moving target because it doesn't exist. When your spirit is right, everything is right and you can pass through obstacles like they're not there; when your spirit is lost, the Universe conspires against you. (Zen calls this "falling into Hell", but I doubt that's a useful statement for a Judeo-Christian audience unfamiliar with Zen's perspective and specific vocabulary. Hell is something we create through clinging to our fear and anger; Heaven is something we create through clinging to our passions and desires. Real happiness lies in letting both of them go--when we move without attachment or hindrance in our minds, we can visit Heaven or Hell as much as we want.)
Driving into work this morning I was seized by a wonderful case of being deleriously, almost violently happy, for no reason. It was on my favorite on-ramp, a big 3/4 mile monster about five stories high that connects 238 North with 880 South. Energy blasting through the top of my head, tears, laughing, the works. Good shit.
Heh, I'm still me. Intense religious experience. "Good shit." I have a vision of myself when I'm old, sitting on my porch shaking my cane and yelling, "All life comes from the same Source, and by disrespecting my grass, you're disrespecting yourselves. And God dammit, get the fuck off my lawn!".