Category: MEDITATION or BUDDHIST
Sitting through the storms
This was the first picture in the Covid project from which this site evolved and was sent to a group of meditation-orientated friends.
It shows a person sitting (meditating or not, as you like) on a mountainside or hillside, the slope between where we are, and where we might like to be, and becoming still, despite the thunder and lightning crashing all around.
The lightning comes close, wavers around their head, but passes over them and they weather the storm. This time of pandemic is a terrible “storm” we are in now, and we don’t know what may happen to any of us, but we are all trying, each with what we are given, to BE in it, in the best way we can.
So whether you Meditate (sitting,walking or lying down), Question, or Inquire, Sit in Silence at home or in a Meeting, do Yoga, attend a place of worship, simply walk in appreciation of Nature in all its forms, delve into The Great Mystery, chant, practice compassion , work with your anxiety, or a great many other possibilities, I hope you can relate to this.
To all experience, Gassho. To all experience, I bow.
This one probably requires a bit of explanation for many people:
The drawing (an actual drawing in this case, not digital) was part of an article which I wrote many years ago for the newsletter of the Zen Buddhist group with which I meditated.
A gassho, here, is the kind of palms-together-in-front-of-the-face little bow, with which many non-meditators also are familiar.
It is an acknowledging, greeting, accepting bow, similar to Namaste, a non-contact form of respectfully greeting and honoring the person you meet- a much better form of greeting than a handshake in my humble opinion, especially in these days of Covid ! I wish the whole world would adopt it.
In this drawing, the meditating person on their cushion, enfolded in the gassho-ing hands, is in black, because that is what is worn in zen meditation (when in a group). He or she is faceless because when we sit, we are, in one sense, self-less. However, in the heart region, the region of compassion, there is a face which could be either a Buddha face or a person (or both!) this figure is also tenderly cradling a face with tears. We hold all these factors, these “faces”, in our hearts.