air and light and time and space

by Tawni Anderson | Aug 22, 2009 | Uncategorized, Zen

 
In the busy-ness of my life, at times I let some things slip to the side, at times other things.  Saying that it’s all about priorities doesn’t always mean that the “important” things get done; priorities shift, sometimes within the space of moments.  The only thing that is sure is that I never get it all done.
Doen talks about not living our lives saying “if only, if only, if only . . . ”—and the next word in that line is “dead.”  We can spend our whole lives waiting for things to line up, to be just right, before we start on a project that we’ve always wanted to do, or spend time with a friend or relative, or any of a million things that we think of but don’t act on. 
 It’s certainly something that I do, but I do it less often because I hear Doen’s voice saying “if only, if only, if only . . . dead.”  Tonight, after tucking my daughter in, I thought through the many things I could do:  make salsa from the tomatoes from my garden and can it for a cold Winter day; write to an old friend; read a novel; watch a movie; hey—I could get some sleep.  But I realized it’s Poem Saturday and, dammit, I need to post.  As so often happens, this poem popped right out as I was looking for one, and it fits perfectly with the “I’ll do it when . . .” syndrome. 
 (Many thanks to my brother, who called me one morning from Thailand, out of the blue, to read this to me on a day when it was exactly what I needed to hear.)
 
“—you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create
blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire. 
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
          Charles Bukowski
 

Photo by tanakawho 

Liberation

by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jul 20, 2009 | Uncategorized, Zen

photo credit: h.koppdelaney
Liberation is being set free from our own conditioned thoughts and beliefs. It is also freedom from the mechanical actions and reactions that come from them.  Most of us would say that they want to be free but at the same time we want to achieve that while holding on to our conditioned thoughts and beliefs, as well as, continuing to do thing in the way we always have.
Its a simple but profound problem.
Fear is what stands in the way even if it is only the fear of discomfort.
Enduring some discomfort doesn’t seem such a high price to pay for our freedom, yet we are often unwilling to pay it. If we examine it carefully we may see that it all adds up to giving up our limitations and the suffering these limitations create.
Strangely enough it seems like our suffering is the last thing we want to give up.