Driving all day
Coffee and sandwiches from the lap
Eye strain
Congestion
Big skies
Arrival decompression
Blame and wisdom after the fact are easy. Understanding and empathy are hard.
Opinions are just entertainment.
When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.
— Byron Katie
Not everything is a battle to be won, a problem to be solved or a mistake to be corrected. If we imagine everything as a nail we end up with a world of hammers.
Letting him lie…
Birthday gifts.
Good afternoon.
Suffering doesn’t disappear from life, it disappears into life.
— Barry Magid, Ordinary Mind Zendo
Good morning.
The central benefit of Zen, in the context of the ordinary ups and downs of life, is not in preventing the minus and promoting the plus but in realising the fundamental reality that is not under the sway of ups and downs.
— Muso Kokushi
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
— Viktor Frankl
Poor refereeing aside, this World Cup has been great.
Lots of amazing goals and classic matches, but there have been some god awful penalties!
I’m drawn to Zen for many reasons but perhaps mostly because it has a sense of humour. I mean one of its primary teaching tools, the Koan, is structurally similar to the way jokes work.
Much of so-called spiritual practice is so needlessly serious and earnest.
Zen delights in undermining the lofty and honouring the trivial.
When you look for what’s looking and find only looking…
Good morning.
Whatever time we get is luck.
Pascal would see the modern smartphone exactly as it is: a weapon of mass psychological destruction. The tech industry has weaponized his understanding of divertissement.
Switzerland vs. Columbia + glass of rosé = 😊
Well I wasn’t expecting an England win. Norway next. On paper more beatable than Mexico at the Azteca but therein lies the problem. We rarely put in performances against beatable sides. It takes a daunting occasion to bring us out of ourselves.
Keeping cool in the woods.
Mad dog meet midday sun.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
— John Muir
Relax and enjoy the voyage now the Titanic of British governance’s new deckchair rearrangement plans are in place.
But there is no should. There is only this: to rise, to touch what is near, to speak what is true enough, to tend to what is falling apart without pretending it can be saved.
— Robert Saltzman, The 21st Century Self
Walking home from watching the England vs. Croatia match last night, a very clear crescent moon and Venus.
Bill always likes to find the sun.
Health
Yesterday I did something to my knee while running. I can walk but slowly. Going up and down steps and inclines are painful.
Health is good right up until it isn’t.
I am, however, having a rather more leisurely dog walk this morning. Lots of pauses and a prolonged stop for coffee at the local garage.
Bill, the dog, takes an unusual dislike to a passing dog and gives a few hearty barks. A rare occurrence for him.
A Red Kite circles overhead. And another, and another. They are so common in these parts it’s easy to take them for granted.
Even the roaring din of a bunch of motorbikes turning up can’t disturb this peace.
A seat? A bed? An altar?
It’s important to know where your energy is best spent. It has taken me many years, trials and tribulations to understand that mine is best spent caring and contemplating. I have learned how wasteful it is to spend energy and attention on matters over which I have no control or influence.
Sunlight
I’m sitting on a sofa at work. A shard of warm sunlight is shinning across my shoulder and on to the floor through a window behind me.
It comes and goes, slowly pulsing to the flow of intermittent clouds as they drift over.
The day of people, work, plans and schedules is waiting to begin but the birds and breeze don’t know.
Suddenly the radio bursts into life, triggered by the reconnection of the faulty wifi, and world out there invades the space in here and so we start.
Krishnamurti was right about many things but he knew f*ck all about human psychology.
The human mind is not primarily designed to recognize reality. It is designed to preserve psychological continuity. The priority is not truth. The priority is survivability. People often say they want honesty. What they usually want is a version of reality that does not destroy their current identity.
At a certain point in life one stops saying Hi and starts saying Bye.
— Martin Amis
The morning
I’m up early as usual.
My alarm is set for 6.30am but I mostly wake up before, switch the alarm off and get up.
I move slowly and quietly so as not to disturb my wife in bed beside me or the dog in its bed on the floor.
I’ve been an early riser all my life. I believe I inherited the trait from my father as he did from his father before him.
Aside from the two or three days a week I don’t work I’m out the door on my way to work soon after getting up.
Whether I’m on a train, walking or driving, this early morning period between waking and working has become something sacred for me.
There is a solitude in this pause between potential and actuality. A moment when the day is still gestating, pregnant with potential.
It is a time for contemplation. Nothing fancy. Whatever arises. Where to buy new work shoes. Worry about my family. Where to buy lunch. Take a photo of a tree.
I’m sitting in my car in a supermarket car park having failed to buy any lunch due to the clearance shelf being bare.
I watch the sky and people coming and going. I consider reading a couple of pages of my book.
I decide to simply sit and listen to the ambient traffic noise before buying a second coffee in addition to the one I have already drunk on the drive here.
I enjoy a coffee as I start my shift counting medication.
What is, is, and in this moment cannot be different. Resisting that is psychological suffering. Things are as they are. If suffering is involved, it is until it isn’t.
— Robert Saltzman
Yes.
Nothing is allowed to be small anymore. Nothing is allowed to be moderate, partial, ordinary, seasonal, boring, or just good enough. Every preference must become an identity, every habit must become a protocol, every disagreement must become a moral emergency, every meal must become a philosophy, every viral post or breaking news item must become a referendum on civilization, every feeling must become a public performance, every hobby must become a monetized personal brand, and every single decision must be optimized, defended, aestheticized, and turned into something approximating Von Clausewitz’s total war.
Happiness can exist only in acceptance.
— George Orwell
At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.
— Toni Morrison
