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How is your own practice going? Feel like sharing your own experiences?

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Best,

Markeu

Seeking perfection and the natural beauty of being flawed

How many of us can recount a time either recently or in the past where we were trying to be perfect at something?

Was it to impress a new friend, or the boss, or just the mastery of some skill that we wished we were better at. Whatever the reason or cause, we struggled with the task at hand and achieved, for better or worse, our goal.

This skill, this perfection however, is constantly changing. The game changes, or the situation changes, we get older, and new parameters are set around us. Struggle sometimes sets in to maintain something that naturally has its own path of course.

We are left with, then, a dilemma. Do we stop trying? Is effort ultimately worthless?

This reality could also apply to a relationship, which constantly changes and grows, bringing some people closer together, others gradually more and more apart.

How we react and what we do in these situations is all part of the human struggle.Often we struggle against change, resist it, fight it, hate it, until in the end it ultimately overwhelms us with its own reality, that of the now.

Whether we choose to see it or not, everything around us is constantly changing. Forest for tree, tree for forest. Each stage of this change is genuine- and in its natural, clear transition, it is teaching us something, whether we choose to see that reality or not.

All phases, the gaining and losing, as a whole, are a part of the legitimacy of life. The legitimacy of our existence being reflected in the passing of time.

The key to all of this is awareness and appreciation. That within the change, gained and lost, is a chance to live.

Maybe more important still, is that the criteria with which we live our lives can deepen over time to allow more subtle appreciations to occur. To see the perfection within the imperfection. The mud on a flower on some mountain glade.

That mud is the stuff of life.Without it, our existence is sterile, puerile, and missing a depth which can liberate us from the childish sufferings of our often superficial modern lifestyles.

Live your life, and as much as possible, maintain your awareness and humbleness within it.

The whole journey, from first baby’s cry, to last eventual sigh, is the palette upon which our lives are made. You are the artist. What you choose to do is your canvas.

Life? The end result does not judge us- only we judge ourselves.

Peace

M

Nature as healer

I often get off one train stop early and walk about 5-6 km to work in the mornings.Its a way for me to slow down myself and touch base with the natural elements that are always around me, yet often forgotten.

For this is modern day, high speed Japan, where every little convenience is though of, and people try to insulate themselves from their surroundings as much as possible. Its an accepted norm; hunched over a portable game on the train, headphones never removed from ears, a movie or tv show watched studiously, ears held shut to catch a few extra moments of sleep before the high speed day whisks them away.

As I walk across the Tamagawa bridge, gray clouds above whip up a strong wind which sweeps over the water and around me. The people I pass are in various stages of resistance, facially tensed, or bracing their bodies against the invasion that nature has once again successfully launched against them. I smile to myself, because if is for that very reason that I choose to walk and brave what may be rain, what could be wind, what could be a steadily increasing biting cold as winter rapidly approaches.

As a young man, I often struggled with emotions. Waves of them, that often inundated me to the extent that their lingering effect could last for weeks and months.When that happened, I would walk myself out into the streets, but more often than not to the beach to let the sounds and smells of the sea comfort me, and let me lose myself in its infinite depths and receptive nature.

When I lived in the mountains of Colorado, a bike ride or a short car trip or motorcycle ride would take me out into nature where I could be alone in the woods or near some mountain stream, only to be overwhelmed by the presence of nature. Thougts, emotions could then be recognized, and then shed/let go.

In Tokyo Japan, I have to hunt for nature. It wont come and find me, I have to make efforts to place myself in its path, or I could go a life of plastics and concretes, which would be such a shame.

Place yourself in nature’s path sometime soon.

Cheers,
M

Reflections

It has been exactly one year to the day that I returned back to Japan after my sojourn in Jersey, and the birthplace of Channel Zen.

A lot has happened within that year, much which is already fading steadily into the past. Change is reflected in the steadily falling leaves as nature prepares again for rest, and it is in that vein that I contemplate this "now-ness" that marks today.

Like all of us, I have my good days and bad, days and moments that I would as soon as possible like to forget, but some of these moments marking and changing me ultimately for the better.

I gradually learn to rest within myself and deal with each moment equally, not obsessing too much about the past or future. Life goes by in the blink of an eye.

I find that practice is much like peeling an onion: one layer comes off only to reveal another underneath, but we keep on peeling…

Peace.