Nothing Inspiring

Foggy brain morning. How to make my home here?

Nothing inspiring or unusual. Same old, same old. The cold weather has me discouraged again. Nothing here but a slight headache and the hum of the refrigerator and the insistent birdcall that comes through the windows.

It’s Saturday of Easter weekend. In the story, He’s still in the darkness of the tomb. Taken down lifeless from the brutal cross and laid out. The Christians are mourning, and the authorities are relieved. What a story to guide a civilization! A story of a peace that passes understanding followed by a senseless death at the hands of the authorities (I thirst.) And then, they say, and they’re already getting ready to celebrate, there is the rising up from the dead. On the third day. Really? Did any of this actually happen then? Or is this still, like all stories, about something that is happening now? (I can’t breathe.)

I read a lovely Ryokan poem in a Dharma talk the other night and a student responded by sharing a matching parable from the Bible about a man who discovered a pearl of great price buried in a field and went and sold everything he had to buy that field. No, no…he joyfully sold everything he had to buy that field.

Where is this field and what is the pearl that could cause such joyful generosity? (For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son…) The pearl of incomparable value is the essence of this life of ten thousand joys and sorrows. Where is it now? How could it be here even in this morning’s dull discouragement?

Hakuin Zenji says: ‘Why do people ignore the near and seek truth afar? Like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst.’ And Jesus chimes in: ‘The Kingdom of God is within.’ (But it will cost you everything you own and you will joyfully pay.)

Wasn’t yesterday’s reflection something about hanging around long enough to appreciate what is already here? Might that apply to even this?

This quiet morning. The cold sun of early spring illuminates the eastern side of the leafless tree across the street. I slouch easily on the couch in mild discomfort. The street outside is empty. Everything waits here.