FitFalls

It’s often easier to write in a small room. Your mind will find it easier to engage with itself in mappable surroundings; you can take it in, conceive of it, in a glance. Yet a big empty space filled with stuff, a library let’s say, can give a feeling of intimate space. And a smallish, empty room might give off echoey empty vibes that could distract.  Any mental activity requires a conceptual space and an actual, physical space. They interact. Six hundred years ago Meister Eckart wrote, “compassion means justice.” 20c poet, potter, and teacher M.C. Richards, noted: ”Acceptance is part of love. It is devotion to the whole.”  By freeing ourselves from evaluation we can attend to and nurture perception. We can then participate in the centering activity that is the cosmos. We immerse ourselves in the spaciousness of creation. Roominess is a centering space filled with love and compassion. 

Oh, teen girls in jean shorts Dangly earrings

A post about trying to keep on one subject. A writing process that just keeps prompting you to “say more about that.” The idea of coherence or making something cohere. As opposed to ... the way minds flit so naturally and easily, even insistently and too often maddeningly from subject to subject. We are all too easily distracted. But is this a weakness or a strength? For example, I might want to write about what my dogs are doing right now. But that does not fit the idea of keeping on this post, which is about the benefits for ones writing of sustained coherence. Pursuing an idea in all its nuance and potential without knowing exactly where one might end up takes a particular kind of discipline more akin to faith than tenacity. Or perhaps faith is the application of tenacity to unknown outcomes. I suppose that’s why disciple and discipline share a common route. This rumination on coherence was prompted by the realization that often when I come up with an analogy or a metaphor for somet

Pragmatism in politics feels like another way of saying we are ok with a total, fundamental lack of moral clarity and moral purpose to guide us. I don't understand how liberals/centrists (and even conservatives/republicans) fail to grasp the ethical argument for electing Bernie. I have hope that the clarity of the moment might sway some, but it's astonishing how deeply capitalist ideology has us in its grips, which is to say we desire a "return" a "status quo," and thus a continuation of injustice and malfunctioning and accommodation to the gods of capitalist profit over the needs of ordinary people. Biden's absurdly defeatist message gives mental relief while Sanders message is simply feared and cannot be accepted or tolerated. While what I hear and see in Sanders's campaign, or movement such as it is, is a plea to our fundamental goodness, a demand for systems of justice for all, and basic, common sense plans that will help the needy and, ultimate

Little dog paws peek out beneath the blanket. One paw then two. Then a soft brown nose. My heart swells. My dogs look in their eyes full of love. I'm distracted now by Chris's voice coming from upstairs. This whole work from home due to "The Plague" i.e., covid-19 is something I said I wanted -having him around would feel nice, not being alone or lonely. But it also feels a little invasive, I guess. What do I mean by "invasive"? i just mean that I can spread out in solitude,be who and how I want. Another presence means I can't be totally myself. What do I mean by "totally myself"? I mean that, alone, I don't have to put on a show or worry about how others perceptions of me require me to address and adjust to their need, for their need to engage with me as they , as he sees best. I've noticed that I tend to deflect writing into a kind of "other" space, I use one might instead of I might or they when I mean he or her. Why? becau

Pain. Isn't pain the biggest fear of all.? The avoidance of pain and searching for pleasure. In Buddhism these two things are at the root of all suffering because they are both forms of attachment. But today, I'm seeing people all over social media feeling sad and complaining about having to shift their lives and I feel no pity. Rather, I feel mainly total impatience and irritation. There is a way in which political concerns dry up compassion at the individual level. Who can feel sorry for the privileged middle class person in the face of all the unaddressed suffering in the world. And the thing about the buddhist attachment hypothesis, if you will, is that it seems predicated on ignoring how certain people suffer because they have an "attachment" to, like, basic life. Bare life, as the philosophers say. But the sun is coming in and I can get just about any music I want to listen to pumped into my house at the mere statement: "Alexa play..." I am the queen