Demonstration: Mind Wander

Spider crawls unsteadily,
Slipping and sliding across the wall,
Front legs extended like climbing poles,
Tentatively probing each step,
Falling but getting caught by its silken safety line,

And as I watch the tiny arachnid’s struggle,
I can’t think what’s its aim
And pause to ponder, ‘what keeps it going
In the absence of fame or blame?’

Presently, the spider disappears
Inside the crack between door frame and wall,
Perhaps to sleep ‘til spring comes to call;
But, I press on, resuming my work,

Striving late into the night
Before I take a break,
As many concerns keep me awake,
A myriad of decisions await,

But certainly nothing as serious
As the spider’s choices
About safe spaces to rest
Or suspend and set its insect net;

And so, breathing in a fresh breath
And exhaling deeply,
I don’t feel sleepy
But full of energy,

The agitation seethes,
Accompanied by muscle tension;
I try to release,
Tell the body to relax,

Let go into tingling, burning and churning,
Experiencing completely the restless sea,
Then take a deep breath
And return to my tasks.

Demarcate: Unsatisfactoryness

I woke up this morning, put my breakfast on to bake in the toaster oven, and then thought about what to do while I was waiting. I found that I just wanted to sit and enjoy sitting. When I sat and there was a feeling of energy, of slight agitation and relief. Then I concluded that part of the pleasure of sitting was the relief of being at rest after having been so active and now being able to sit down. But in no time my thoughts got going and then turned towards writing this down.

When I consider many of the things I was taught that I took to be the way things are, I see flaws in every one. So, for example, when I took shop in high school, I was told: “the function dictates the form.” In other words, when you design a product, you should first consider the function to which it is to be put, and based on that decide the form it should take. Nowadays, however, it seems to me that a lot of products are sold based on glitzy, shining, colourful design and packaging, aggressive pricing and various marketing techniques, from the in-your-face to the more subtle. But, even if one tries to follow the function first, it depends on who’s designing it and who’s using it, and so often we see products designed by engineers in accordance with what they find functional vs. what the average non-technical person finds easy to use and helpful.

Where I’m going with this is that in every bit of conventional wisdom that I come across, or even the non-conventional variety, I find unsatisfactoryness is sure to follow, as I always discover a glitch. And, of course, I believe that was one of the Buddha’s points. So, here I’ve been thinking there was something wrong all the time, only to encounter a view that says that my discovery is unoriginal business as usual. I’ve gotten hung up on this little bit of unsatisfactoryness so often and suffered from it so much, and I just can’t seem to stop doing it. Finding out what’s “wrong,” about any given hypothesis or theory has become a habit, but as for where to go from there, I still haven’t quite got that part.

Perhaps that’s where the compassion comes in, that we are all in the same boat, even though a lot of us don’t know it. But from here, I can see how not clinging can reduce the suffering. If we hold to ideas we find a lot of suffering. If we hold on to stuff, whether it be hardware or software, so-called durable and non-durable goods, we suffer. If we don’t, we don’t. If we hold onto our suffering we suffer from that too. And given our propensity for both, there’s plenty of room for compassion in this equation!

Demanding: Material Fatigue

Post-holiday de-shopping,
Having been through
The bargain sale wars,
As return deadlines loom
The decision pressure mounts,

What works?
And what to keep?
Connecting up the electronics,
And seeing
The results;

How to bring practice
To this?
Definitely an occasion
To reflect upon
Impermanence, unsatisfactoryness and not-self,

As none of these contraptions
Will last,
Some will not meet
The inflated expectations,
And in the end, none are me or mine;

Or so I said to myself,
When feeling frustrated
With all the hassles
Of grappling with the
New technologies;

Besides, it’s just
Another set of skills to master
And a good work out
For the brain,
Which has been somewhat underused lately.

Anyhow, I think now
A rest is in order
From this constant patter,
Before resuming consideration of the matter.