Simplicity can be Complicated

Sunday 11/7

Sleep, sleep, and more sleep. Nothing at all resembling Presence or anything like it, but – settling in. Still, some synchronicities that make me pause:
- Beth’s giving me bread just as I’m complaining to myself that all I really need is some bread. (She didn’t know.)
- The bird today at the reflection pond, flying right up to me as I was getting lost
- The insect in the forest, of a type I’d never seen before, just as I started paying attention. Gorgeous blue and black.
- The interview right at the time I thought “Hmm, maybe I should check the interview board to see if anything’s been posted.”

Little moments.

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The retreat began at 5:45 as “tea” was ending. Through no immediate effort of my own, great calm and silence took place. Still with me now. Was sweet, then different – now just very clear-feeling- the sound of the pen, the shape of things.

Stellar dharma talk, though I’ve forgotten most of the detail.

Buddhism is at once very simple and very complicated. Consider the Present Moment. It’s simple: just be present. Find what’s blocking you, see it, allow it, and be present. But look at what that does. Look at what the present moment is:
- Mindfulness -> Compassion
- Mindfulness -> Appreciation of the richness of life
- God
- “Just this” / Recognizing that this is Enlightenment
- Seeing causes and conditions – insights into nature of reality, emptiness
- Insights into psychology – causes and conditions
- Not being aversive -> End of clinging -> End of suffering -> Liberation
- Silence/ space to experience the nondual

Complicated!

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When a bell is struck, you hear it. The causes and conditions are present. So you don’t judge. The same is true when you are sad, angry, etc. Of course, in the latter, some of the conditions can change, so there’s a tendency to really want them to. It’s tricky – don’t judge, but have an aspiration that they can improve.

The shit will still hit the fan, but how will it smell to you.

[In a delusory religious path, it may smell like roses. But on this one, it still smells like shit, and that may be unpleasant. But the unpleasant can be accepted, held.]

I liked the simplicity of “Relax into mindfulness.” Mindfulness is not about moving too slow or too fast. Just, how relaxed are you. But then again, it’s not the relaxation of spacing out on vacation. Also tricky. So many of these things seem simple, but aren’t. Silence is necessary.