portraits

Seedling

| betweenstops

I go to glaze pottery for Amma. The ashram in California is planting trees. Tens of thousands of them; like everything her organization does: be it hospitals, schools, homes for disaster relief victims etc etc etc.

Making art and then giving it away, leaving it there as I drive off is very liberating. I do my best and leave. There is no exhibition to worry about, no sales to hope for. I have a bit of a hope (as I stand in the balcony watching next month when Amma is here) to see someone in the line to be hugged, who has bought my pot with it’s seedling in it, taking it to Amma, who will hold it for a moment and then pass it on to someone else who will also pass it on and eventually it will be planted.

The seedling is the important thing, the glazed pot is just the carrier. I don’t even know what happens to it in the end. Perhaps it gets broken to release the grown seedling, which is, of course, no longer a seedling.

As I am glazing pots, I am talking to a woman also glazing pots. At one point in the conversation, she refers to the divine plan; as in one can’t argue with it or control it much. I tell her, not without sadness, that I don’t much believe in the divine plan anymore. I used to but…
This is received by understandable silence. I think of a New Yorker cartoon I saw a couple months ago where the person is sobbing, head down on the desk, the caption reading , “There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny and no God!”

Still, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that.

In Another’s shoes

| betweenstops

I notice a tourist couple, with their map, disagreeing sort of, but not quite enough to be decisive. Then one makes a move away down the street toward the tunnel and the other begins to hasten after.
The tunnel is dingy and dark while (on their map) one street over is the more exciting and unusual. Who would willingly walk through that tunnel? is what I’m thinking. In all the years I’ve lived here… is what I’m thinking.

So I try to help. I say, “Do you need help?” thinking I will now tell them how to walk through the grand gate guarded by dragons, one block over (on their map).

They ignore me. They do not understand english and are speaking a language I don’t understand but am guessing is eastern european by the way they look.

At first I am irritated and mumble to myself, “They don’t think they need help but they do.”

Then I see that they need to walk through the tunnel and I need to return to my own business.

Waking Up

| betweenstops

After watching the digital clock for a while, she decides on getting up at four in the morning rather than lying in the darkness any longer. It’s the darkness in her mind keeping her up anyway. Better to turn on the lights.

She almost falls asleep on the train going to her morning class and almost asleep again coming home. So when she gets home, she lies down and goes to sleep.

She wakes up in the dark. This is rain dark, not night dark. Wondering why hunger follows afternoon naps, she opens the frig to find it mostly empty.

After the cashier has rung up the grocery cart with two hundred dollars worth of selected items, she realizes her wallet is on the kitchen table at home. She explains. She goes home. She comes back.

The cashier is kind, and he says, “No worries, You are not alone”, meaning this happens all the time.

Confused at the payment keypad between “CLEAR” and “ACCEPT”, she decides on “ACCEPT” because it’s green and likes that he has told her she is not alone.

Outside, near the entrance to the grocery store, someone has permanently written in once wet cement “The Dali Lama” under an also permanent sentence.

The sentence says, “Find hope in the darkness and focus on the light”.

Tonglen Practice

| betweenstops

3/4 million (750,000) people can soon die of starvation in Somalia. There is a drought in Africa which has left the people without food.

there is food being given but

the pirate type controlling the country won’t let aid in

the big boats can’t get to the ports
even if they could, on shore
it is beyond food
some now need care before they can eat.
These Somalian people.
What now to do with the awareness of them and it’s effect on me
?
The tonglen buddhist practice is the only real thing
that helps.

Breathing in and breathing out with
attention
toward another with well-wishing

helps.