[Image: “Christmas Without,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]
The Missus and I head to New Jersey next week to spend a few days with my family and friends there. This will be our first such trip up there in — well, decades, anyhow. So I’m really looking forward to it. (Especially so, since it appears we’ll be able to travel within a window of time between unpleasant weather — it’ll be cold, yes, but at least not wet.)
In the meantime, whiskey river reminds me to look out the window… but then to go one step further and see out there, too:
Winter Solstice
Claire says the day will be one second longer.
Darkness will no longer exceed light.
But the weather is abysmal,
so hatred of gloom is not an option. I want to live
to be ninety-five, too, and still be assembling
words into music and truth. For now,
I regard a conference of stars, with fast-moving clouds.
Sometimes my dreams are like explosion pits,
with scary lava. Yet the Earth remains constant,
tilting away from the sun and back,
like a robin to a bare branch.
Be somebody with a body, the stars command;
Don’t be a nobody. I know them by heart,
as they sink and as they rise.
(Henri Cole [source — where you can hear it read by the poet, if you’d like])
All of which sounds perfectly unexceptionable, right? Yet I suspect I’m not alone in my difficulty with keeping my eyes physically open and my mind shuttered and clear. Here’s something to help with that, maybe (not from whiskey river):
…do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind, and if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer. In five or at most ten minutes, your mind will be completely serene and calm. At that time your breathing will become quite slow, while your pulse will become a little faster.
It will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice. Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise, but they are just waves of your own mind. Nothing comes from outside your mind. Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside, but that is not a true understanding of our mind. The true understanding is that the mind includes everything; when you think something comes from outside it means only that something appears in your mind. Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
(Shunryu Suzuki [source])
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