Setting up the zendo for the Intro Class this past Sunday, a longtime member asked if she could help. We spoke of the wind, blowing with an intensity unlike anywhere I’ve lived. “Yes,” she said. “It drove me crazy the first few years we lived here – until I realized that’s how seeds are spread.”
A grateful moment, entrusting the day with its unsettling turmoil to nature’s great release. Entrusting ourselves to the moment at hand.
How are the seeds spread in our practice? By deafening wind blowing like sound, right through us? Thoughts swirling, blustery as the weather? Or by just showing up for a class, a round of sitting, a community event – arriving in the welcome just as you are. Arriving as an offering.
The prolific 13th century Zen master, Eihei Dogen, could not write practice-awakening as two words. Neither can we find the divide between giving-receiving.
Come, come, whoever you are, wrote Rumi.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times.
Come, come again, come.
The zendo is open. This practice is open. The wild wind is entirely open.
Offer yourself and therein receive the gift.
Bows and love.
Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash