Gokarna, India.
Ok, I have an idea. I will sit outside with my laptop. The feeling of the night was so nice and I kind of lost that feeling here under the fan and with artificial light. So I will sit there and type and be all inspired and shit until the insects start eating me, I guess.
Wow! I am doing it! Not only did I go outside my little cabin to sit in front of it but also I thought “fuck it, I should be even braver and wilder and walk to the beach”. So now I sit more or less on the spot where I meditate in the morning, under the stars this time. It is high tide but there is no moon (isn’t the tide higher with new moon?) so it is very dark and I can’t see how close the sea is coming. This makes me kind of nervous because I don’t want a wave of seawater over my laptop. But it is exhilarating too.
One of the beach dogs just came to say hello and I also feel our six legged friends are biting me in toes of both my feet. I can smell the holy shit the cows have been offering to the beach. What can I say? Life is good.
Perhaps this is the difference between direct experience and talking from memory. When I sit on my bed and reflect on the day it is different than being in the middle of it. Haha, I am cracking myself up. I can’t say I am totally at ease here. I hear big waves approaching every 5 seconds and the insects are attracted by the brightness of my screen and coming from everywhere now. A cat has just found me and is purring against my back (that’s nice of her).
This morning I woke up with a nice thought. I realized that I had no clue what the day would bring me and that this is an amazing thing. Perhaps I had a rough plan and I even kind of followed that plan. But I never had thought that the beach would stay empty for hours. I meditated close to the water for 40 minutes and when I was done I was still alone. I walked into the water to go swimming but decided in the moment to run first. Because it was low tide I ran over the hard sand and I learned that barefoot running over hard sand is an excellent way to practice your Pose or Chi running technique (because landing on your heels feels uncomfortable). After my run I swam for an hour and when I was done, two hours after my arrival, the beach was still empty.
When we are open to it our days are filled with all kinds of little surprises and miracles. Who would have guessed an hour ago that I would sit outside writing my blog (now with two dogs trying to play with me. Ah, the dogs kicked sand all over my precious AirBook. That’s it, Mr Adventurous is going back inside). Where was I? We have a choice. We can either try to control, manipulate, avoid or decrease our experience (as we generally do, just observe your inner commentary on everything if you don’t believe me) or we can embrace it as it is presented to us. We can open up to the moment. It is not a nuisance that the moods of your co-workers can differ every day; it is a miracle. The sun comes out: people start to undress and flirt. It rains: people become moody. Isn’t it fascinating? The world becomes a field of play.
Tomorrow will be a brand new day. I have no clue what will happen. What will I eat? Which doggies will join me in my meditation? What will not be on the menu? Will I be grumpy, sad or happy? Will I remember this insight or will I fall back into old patterns? Will I like my reflection in the mirror or will I find something to criticize myself for? Let’s sit back, relax and enjoy the show while our “I” participates.
Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
– Rumi
PS: The first time I read this quote was on the old website of my friend and fellow spiritual warrior Ralph Freelink. If you are from Holland and feel inspired to learn to meditate yourself and don’t want to wait till I am back; I highly recommend his meditation courses (and his readings and his coaching). His new website is in Dutch but his blog is in English. Check it out.
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Isn’t it interesting how we, humans, turn denying reality into a virtue? Nothing is constant in life, everything and anything can, and will, change in an eye blink and what do we do in response to that? We try to resist it as much as possible, pretend it doesn’t happen, admire constancy and stability, acclaim predictability as a great virtue while we deplore what we call “flightiness” and condemn people who change too much as not serious, immature, untrustworthy. And then life changes, someone dies for example, and we call that change tragedy. We call most changes tragedy. What silly humans we are!
Thank you for your reply!
What comes up for me when I read your reply is: we fear death. Humans love change that confirms their ideas of being alive safely. We are obsessed with economic growth for example. We love to control circumstances because we fear the uncertainty of not-knowing. These fears are so widespread that they become invisible: ‘common sense’ is to try to control subconscious fear.
That is true, in fearing death what we fear is life and so we try to seperate ourselves from it and say “no, life should not be like this!”. But life persists in being just what it is, with death and uncomfortable change and all. How much easier our stay here would be if we could align ourselves with life, rather than fight it, resent it, fear it and defend against it, don’t you think?
Very true. But the paradox is that easy is not so easy for us. We have to go a long way before we find what was already there. Aligning myself with life has become my daily practice and I am not 100% successful every day, to say the least. But it is totally worth it!