Everything is the breath. Breathe.
Without it, we die. With it we live, think, love, connect, dance. This breath is not extravagant but very precious.
Gentle February sunlight streams through my window onto my desk. Four magenta orchids enliven the atmosphere. They sit on my desk’s southern sunny edge. A small, triangular, white Alabama quartz crystal; an oval subtly-speckled, moss green labradorite; and a golden Tibetan singing bowl are close by. Photographs of people I love - my parents, Papa Henry, my husband, and my kumu - anchor the southwestern corner of my desk.
A stack of files used to sit right in front of the flower pot. That made it hard to see the orchids or the photographs. All I saw were files and work. I decided about a week ago to move the files. Now I’m surprised and nourished by my vivid orchids and family of photographs.
So much energy gets released when I clear out things. Clutter seems to be life-energy in stasis. No movement. No dance. No presence. Could having a cluttered mind make it hard to be present? How do you remove mind clutter?
A paragraph in Zenju Earthlyn Manuel’s new book, The Shamanic Bones of Zen caught my eye.
"Zazen is a prolonged ritual of seeing and listening…. Za means sitting and zen means meditation…. To take one’s seat in Zazen is to sit upon the earth. It is to connect to the source of our life which is the breath passed on by the ancestors."
I had never thought of sitting meditation as a prolonged ritual of seeing and listening. But it is! Zazen is practicing to see what your mind is doing and listening to what your heart and body are feeling. It’s bringing attention to thoughts and letting them go. Always clearing and coming back to re-focus on breath. Again, again, and again.
Breath passed on by the ancestors speaks of our deep interconnection to the past, present, and future. Can we awaken to energy that suffuses the world, the universe, our bodies? Find out. Become intimate with your breath.
Everything is the breath. Breathe.
Malama pono (take good care of body, mind and spirit),
June Kaililani Ryushin Tanoue
Kumu Hula, Sensei
P.S. Listen to a talk I gave recently on Sunday Morning Zen on "Buddhas in Training - The Way of the Bodhisattva" (enlightened being) https://youtu.be/1H0_0jRYdac.