At home in the muddy water...

Yesterday evening I was sitting outside the front of the house and everything was coming forward.

A blackbird improvising blackbird-jazz. The large noise of the traffic. Fat deep pink peony buds hiding behind the gate. Flakes of skin in my cat's fur. A plane's twin trails of fluffy smoke.

For years now, I've made it a daily practice to notice one thing properly and write it down. I call these snippets of writing small stones and they live here.

For the past few months I've struggled to find my daily small stone. I've had to trawl through my days backwards, searching for a single something and pinning it down by force.

Yesterday evening small stones presented themselves to me wherever I looked. It wasn't the world that had changed, it was me.

How can we move towards this clear seeing way-of-being? How can we become more engaged with the world?

I only have one answer so far. Practice. Practice noticing. Practice noticing when you're not engaged. Sit still. Let things settle. It takes a LONG TIME for things to settle, and but if we can notice one thing properly every day, isn't that a start?

I feel lucky. I have my small stones and my writing as a barometer, to help me keep a kind eye on myself. I have found a great deal to help me in the Zen literature. But when all is said and done, it just comes down to sitting still.

Here's what one of those clever Zen teacher types has to say on the matter. Bayda presents several reasons for having a formal meditation practice - one of them is this.

Picture a clear glass of water with a layer of mud at the bottom. Imagine stirring up the water so it becomes muddy. This muddy water is our substitute life - swirling with anxiety and confusion. We race around trying to keep up, but with little clarity about what we're doing. Taking this glass and setting it down is like setting ourselves down to sit. What happens? In the glass, the mud gradually settles to the bottom, and water becomes clear and still. [...] Over time, sitting fosters a settled quality, an equanimity, in the midst of the muddy turmoil of our lives.

Ezra Bayda, from At Home in the Muddy Water

Here's to settling down, and clear seeing. ENJOY your weekends.