so I sat on my porch last night. It’s Georgia and the house is old enough that it feels kind of-“classy.” Or if I ground enough I notice that it’s only my imagination that this place feels like “home,” and there’s no difference between where I live and the one next door… that “next door yard that I always see from a certain angle” from my chair is also my imagination… And our houses and roads encroach on nature, but hold it at bay a lot less than we think…
And Bloomingdales, at the upscale mall just looks like a clean walmart, if you drop the illusions…
Anyhow, I remembered that I had bought a piece of chocolate at the Godiva store. My mouth started watering and my cheeks puckering just a bit. I sat there and stopped myself from leaving the moment, racing ahead to the refirdgerator… I took a minute then got up and got the chocolate. I played erotically with the lime flavored truffle, teasing that puckering hungry feeling out of my mouth for a long time, then I ate it slowly. Rolling it around in my mouth and noticing each feature of it.
When I was done, I began a meditation process. I had once read, “meditation is just like eating your favorite meal.” And I thought this referred to the mindfulness involved. Now I knew something different. I noticed how as I was feeding myself bits of the worlds most perfect chocolate, I was in no way attempting to fast forward the moment. So I got to sit there, and notice my anticipations, just as I am doing right now.
I read a story last week. It was at the osho zen society website, about a nun who went to a town and they refused her a place to sleep. She had to go and sleep under a tree, and it was cold, and nuns don’t own a lot of stuff to keep warm with. But in the middle of the night she woke up, because she couldn’t sleep well, and the tree she was under was blooming. It turned out to be a cherry tree, and it was now covered in fresh blossoms with frost on them, glistening in the moonlight. She started crying because it was so Beautiful (just like I am doing now). Had she not been refused a room, then she would have missed out on this wonderful gift.
Jonathan
A Journey Towards Freedom 