XII
A certain brother went to Aboot Moses in Scete,
and asked him for a good word.
And the elder said to him:
Go, sit in your cell,
and your cell will teach you everything.
I have tried to meditate, to quiet my mind, to breath, and to let things come in and go out without judgement. This is excruciatingly difficult for me. My mind has gotten louder over the years. The conversations have risen to a din that is hard to silence, and my brain can multi-task and flit about from thing to thing.
Successful meditation is about focus. Some people focus on an object or a mantra or a prayer. I find that watching the birds out the window and trying to 'hear' their voices is a form of focus that works. To 'do it,' I have to quiet my mind so that I can hear them. It's like hearing the grandfather clock. Some days I only hear the half hour chime. A great exercise that I use periodically is to try to listen and determine how many different sounds I hear. The white noise of the day. What do I hear? The ticking of three clocks. My watch. The birds. The wind. Sometimes passing vehicles. House sounds.
On Saturday morning, I read from the Tao. I'm reading Wayne Dyer's book on the Tao. From the 2nd verse:
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
only because there is ugliness
All can know good only because there is evil.
--
Being and nonbeing produce each other.
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short,
the high by the low
Before and after go along with each other
...
It goes back to naming things. Labeling them. Giving them parameters. The moment you do it, the thing becomes bound. It is no longer free. It is restricted. How many times a day do we restrict? How can I listen to a bird's song and not think 'beauty' and just hear it. That is my challenge.
Below are some notes from the April 1st Project:
