The Intolerable Fluttering of the Leaves

The tidal rush of anxiety, and its foam of anger. Then the ebb, and all that's left on the beach is loneliness. Lost confidence, lost connection.

At first, of course, I try to recover it, Whatever "it" is -- it's not something I know I have when I have it. It only announces itself by absence. Confidence -- clarity -- equanimity -- something like that. At this point, how would I know? But having sat with it twenty minutes, now, I can maybe turn a little bit from clutching at the recovery, and wonder what its absence has to bring me. If nothing else, compassion and understanding. I'm not the only person who has lost it.

The solution is to give it away. I'm sure of that. To take such shreds of it as remain to me, and offer them someone, anyone. To leave it "free to all finders." I can find my bearings quite exactly by my fear. Let it blindly spin me to the direction it chooses. Then open my eyes, turn 180 degrees, and start walking.

This is, after all, the place from which I can take refuge, maybe the only place from which I can really take refuge.

The fluttering, the intolerable fluttering of the leaves. Presence, absence, presence, absence -- do you start to see? That's why I have to practice it over and over, not because I will succeed, but precisely and only because I will fail.

The six bright pennies that I chose to be the counters for my ngondro practice are the color of dark molasses, now. But they're still there.

Okay. Thank you for walking with me. I can go on from here alone.