Friday 10 July 2015

JAM TODAY

One benefit of a zen practice is that traffic jams don't exist. You are simply where you are. Where you are meant to be, or want to be, is irrelevant. On the hottest July day on record, in a jam which resulted in a journey from Birmingham to York taking six hours, this can be a stern test. But it is possible to relax into it, and the doors of perception then open, as they always will with a concentration on the present moment.

There is a great moment in the film of the Way of the Peaceful Warrior, where Socrates, played by Nick Nolte, takes his student on a walk. They sweat for several hours up a hill, till they reach a view of the familiar - the town where they live.

"There. There you are. Look at that," says Nolte.

 "What? That view? You've brought me all this way to see that view? I've seen it a thousand times. It's where I live for God's sake."

"No," says Nolte, "not the view. This stone here......."

He looks down. The student is dumbfounded by his stupidity.

So with the traffic jam.

At the side of the road, in defiance of traffic fumes, are ox eye daisies, foxgloves, wild cherry, blackberry, wild rose, wonderful ash and sycamore, and, high above, audible even in the traffic, a lark.

There. If only you have eyes to see.

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