It is a beautiful time for retreat on the farm – the world has given over some of its pride and sits content in the workings of what we see as birth and death. The late summer season is a time of suspense, the glowing greens of summer’s swollen leaves sigh and fade.
I appreciate the Chinese five elements system of medicine in which there are five seasons, not four – summer being divided into summer and late summer. It’s very astute – the associated developmental theme of late summer is transformation, its paramita is dana or giving, and its taste, sweetness. In the human experience, it’s connected to the sound of singing and the emotion of anxiety – how intimate is that view of the body with the landscape.
Here on the farm, you see the plants relaxed, acceptant, and rested – the deed of prolific growth fulfilled. The crisp air promising autumn that is held at bay in a city is wildly free here to live with the starry summer night pierced by owl calls. It is a good place to study the green mountains walking.
How swiftly the strained honey
Of afternoon light
Flows into the darkness
And the closed bud shrugs off
Its special mystery
To break into blossom
As if what exists, exists
So that it can be lost
And become precious
- In Passing by Lisel Mueller
***
To cultivate the way really means to cultivate your own heart, and this cultivation brings its own sweet fruit of gratitude and appreciation. A single carrot freshly observed brings gratitude. A glimpse of something wild, surprising and long familiar, leaves you humble and free. Even the weeds, the brambles that prick our soft skin and sting, are met with a “yes.”
***
The crisp air promising autumn…Thirty two outside the zendo. Thirty two inside the zendo. Hundreds of years ago, in the snowy Eihei mountains, Dogen’s instructions to the monks were this: Thus, do not fear the suffering from cold. The suffering from cold has never crushed the way. You should only be concerned about not practicing. Lack of practice leaves a person divided and hinders the way. Do not be put off the suffering from heat. The suffering from heat has never crushed the way. You should only be concerned about not practicing. Lack of practice leaves a person divided and hinders the way. This is not a message to become a marine, it’s a message of kindness, because we want something more than a comfortable pain free life, we want to know what it’s like to be undivided. Being undivided is being natural, in harmony, and we start by working the empty field of awareness, pulling the weeds with the inbreath and the outbreath. Becoming very quiet, the autumn moon finds you. The closed bud shrugs off its special mystery.
Sit well friends,
Seido
