Meditation in Action

I had felt confused and scattered for a few days.
In the afternoon I picked up a book and came across a quote by Alan Watts. It says:

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

I wondered for a moment and then decided to go for a walk on the beach.

What does it mean to just peel the potatoes? And how is that an act of spirituality?

I looked at the waves, walked and noticed my breathing – just looking, walking, breathing. There was a lightness, a calmness and openness, an awake-ness to this. It was like “just peeling the potatoes”. Simply just walking, looking, breathing. Suddenly in that place of just being creative words came to mind – not by thinking, more by receiving and certainly without trying The scatteredness had disappeared. I found myself smiling.

So “just peeling the potatoes” maybe really means to give all my attention to what I am doing in the present moment instead of thinking about this and that and making mental comments. In that way I become completely available to a simple yet sacred and infinite creativity. By giving all my attention, caring, love and presence into this very activity the activity itself is the spirituality. It is an expression of Spirit, of God.

I have noticed many times that when we are completely with what we are doing (and also our inner experience) without trying to get anywhere, then possibilities expand, action comes to us spontaneously and often we find insights and ideas that our rational mind would not have come up with. Sometimes this means we remain silent when our mind wants to speak and debate, sometimes it means we say something when mentally it doesn’t seem to make sense at all. Maybe this is in some way the spontaneous aliveness of Zen in action?

“Touching the Core” is about that. It is a space of meditation - or prayer - in action. It is noticing and being available to what is going on – inside and outside - thereby “touching the core” and allowing spontaneous action to manifest and healing to take place.

www.touchingthecore.co.za

The Trap

One day I was walking along the no-path through the forest of life. I was wearing shoes of joy, a coat of trust, a hat of strength and lingerie of love, carrying a sword of bold courage and a heart of open sensitivity. I was skipping along, whistling a sound of freedom.

Suddenly it started raining. First, the coat got wet and the hat started dripping. I was cold but I thought to myself: “No, this is the coat of trust and the hat of strength; I will keep them on to help me on my path.” It rained harder and my clothes got wet and cold to my bones. The lingerie was freezing cold against my skin; the sword squishing in the scabbard.  I thought: “No, I will not take of the underwear. Without love I cannot see my path and without the sword of courage I cannot cut through the obstacles.” 

By then I was shivering, muscles freezing, each step was a painful effort, my lungs grasping for air, the heavy burden of the coat, hat and shoes were weighing me down. My head was dizzy and confused. I saw people pass but could not see their faces.

Tired I sank to the ground by a large tree.
What had happened?

I could no longer bear it; so I took off my clothes and rested the sword. Naked and cold I sat in the rain, the water running down my bear shivering body - nothing to do besides feeling the rain, each droplet meeting the skin. I gazed into the mist in a long silence. Suddenly I heard a whisper:

“Don’t you know - the no-path can never be your path and essence can never be your belonging. Go, dance in the rain, naked – with your eyes wide open. That’s all.”

Free hands

I cannot save the world from suffering but I can listen, heart wide open and hear the longings in our language of blood an violence. I cannot fix each broken tree but I can look, eyes wide open and see what is here without the labels of right and wrong. I cannot heal all the wounds in this world but I can be in it with my whole being, releasing my grip on past and future and let free hands do the heart's work.

On Not Knowing

It was a day in December. Snow had covered the world outside in a gentle silence and I was sitting with my grandmother sipping hot tea talking about her experience of the Second World War and the complicity of so many ordinary Germans in the Holocaust.

“Do you think it could happen again?” I ask her.

She says “Yes, people are so easy to influence and so often we are not taught to question – questioning is not taught as a value. Where loyalty to a party, religion, belief or anything else begin to harden – this will become possible again”

As I walk home through the snow a little later her words spring up again in my mind...

Holding on and defending a belief, the striving and the conviction of being right – maybe that is what lies at the core of violence, of hurting each other and ourselves. What drives us into needing to be right? What drive us into having to hold on to the world as we see it and understand it?

Maybe it is the fear of being unsure. What is it that remains if I cannot be sure? What does it mean to “not know” in my personal life and what does it mean within groups, societies and between nations? Not knowing is often seen as a weakness. Those who have the courage to be unsure are exploited and abused by those who believe to be right – right about a belief, a worldview, or even just in defence of a personal interest. I guess we have all been in both of these positions.

What is it that gives us the strength and the guidance to make a choice without being sure and without knowing? And how do we still live and relate in a community and a society of different realities?

I think this is one of the questions we explore in Aikido practice. We practice to be in touch with this strength that does not depend on being right, to be in touch with that strength inside us, inside the movement and inside the relationship with another human being. Uke attacks and again and again we want to be right. The “I” pushes through. Separation creeps in and we want to “do” the technique, want to throw uke. And if we don’t uke becomes overpowering, we lose our centre or feel lost. But both of those ultimately hurt both us and uke.

Without really “knowing” I have found that in Aikido practice we search for a different way marked by a deep trust, openness and a strong gentleness that leaves all separation behind. But where do this trust, openness, strength and gentleness come from if we cannot find it in being right and in being sure?

I stop, reaching for my keys.

What a wise grandmother I have...

Love one another, but make not a bond of love

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous.
But let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.

From "The Prophet" by Kahil Gibran

No trace

You slip through the room
Invisible, hidden behind a mask
Running, fleeing from touch
Leaving no trace

The music hides even your breath
A struggle
Yesterday and today
Making sure no one hears

In your eyes
A deep sadness
In your breath
A longing for what you run from

Hidden so well
Maybe even from you?

Free

Yesterday
When our eyes met
My heart opened up
Silently loving
Breathing deeply
In your presence
















There in the night
You drop a little pebble
Into the still waters
Calmly whispering

Can you let me be free?

Little ripples travel across the waters
My heart embracing your whisper
Deep in the still waters

There in the dawn
You turn to my heart
Dropping stone after stone
Whispering

What do you expect?




















In the light of the day
The waves rise and break
Currents rage

The heart freezes
Grasping for air
Almost believing
That whisper

You feel the cold
The hardness in every move

Then as the sun sets
Deep down in my heart
The pebble moves
Cracking and gently
Melting the ice

Can you let me be free?














Tonight it rests
In my hearts calm embrace
A soft whisper touching you
My love knows no cages
Be free

Regina Lindau, 23 May 2009

Dance

It is quiet
The noise of the day is gone

There is only the voice of the ocean
Singing

In that song
I find you

As I dive and the waves undress me
I feel your kisses float under my skin

Back to the shore
I sit

Naked
Watching the waves dance

Dance like only you can

Regina Lindau, 23 March 2009