Almost every day, I find myself standing on the same rocks, looking over the same water, towards the same mountains, breathing the same air.
But are they the same?
I may walk there, I may drive, I may sit on the shore but mostly I stand, feeling my body grounding in this place. My senses become alert to all the subtle changes of light, wind, and smells as time stands still.
I have no expectations about what I will see, hear or feel there. I just show up. It doesn’t matter how I feel when I go there, I notice some sort of transformation by the time I leave. The elements communicate with me on a visceral level. I embrace them all. In the stillness of standing in the same place, I feel enlivened.
It is my experience that the more I go, the more subtleties are revealed. It is a deepening practice that everything is the Buddha -- the wind, the rain, the sun, the reflections, the fog, the earth, the creatures, the vegetation. Everything dances together, and I am a part of that dance.
Is this the experience of joy knowing itself?
Gasshō
Janice