When I sat my last meditation course, just before coming to Wyoming, I felt like maybe I was done with Vipassana, like maybe I just wasn't on the right path. And then something happened: I settled into the meditation in a new way. In giving up, I lost the sharp edges that may have been preventing me from properly practicing all along. The course started to go smoother - certainly my smoothest one yet. So much so, I found it a little surprising by the end.
A friend sent me an astrological report just afterwards. A shift of Neptune occurred during the course, and I found it so apt with my long term goals that I'll just quote it.
have the power to shape that consciousness, to infuse it with your hope and visions. Through subtle means - perhaps thru art, music, dance or devotional works - you have an uncommon ability to bring others into different realities. We need you. Protective facades used to hide your sensitivity become too exhausting to hold up. Take a spiritual retreat sometime this year, choose this over numbing escapes. Trust, there is a new self ready to step forward.. Losses of the last couple of years required inner strength to complete a chapter in your life. Explore neglected or undeveloped skills, they may bring electricity to existing situations. A passionate longing for companions who look at life with similar depth may be satisfied thru a return to school or spiritual practice. Travel as soul quest. All will provide rudders, bringing you guiding principles and codes of living. (Gretchen Lawlor)
I still feel much as I did when I was entering Wyoming - that I don't see how my plans and dreams could be fulfilled. But one thing certainly has changed. I feel so different. Change seems to be such a subtle thing. I remember looking around after this last Vipassana course and realizing I had come a certain way, even though it has long felt like I was only paying lip service to some ideal. The fundamental teaching of the Buddha is the ever-changing state of our existence. And studying this concept as I have been, I often feel that everything really is static - that no part of me is really changing. There seems to be little hope of awakening a new self. Someone said that the greatest miracle of all is that men can change - that a devil can become a saint. Perhaps seeing this transformation as a miracle is simply a testament to our own short-sigtedness. Our humanity that refuses to believe in the actuality (and the logical consequences) of perpetual change. However the case may be, I do feel changed. I feel as though something has sprung forth with such virility and true manhood that I do stand somewhat astonished. I don't mean to be boastful. It's likely that outside eyes wouldn't recognize it, and I see in what a tenuous position I still stand, however something is changed. It would seem that it took this land to bring it out of me.
I visited Lander, WY yesterday. The "big city" offered me a ripe view of my position, for suddenly I saw coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants, things to buy, things to see... I missed my evening meditation, and observing the quality of my mind, I found turmoil. Grasping and calculation replaced the silent acceptance of the snow or the thunder of horses hooves as they race in from pasture. I don't pretend to understand what this dichotomy inside and outside means.
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When school and mosque and minaret
get torn down, then dervishes
can begin their community.
Not until faithfulness
turns to betrayal
and betrayal into trust
can any human being
become part of the truth.
-Rumi
