Early growth

I’m thinking about spring. The unpredictability of the weather, day by day. Yesterday and today – beautifully sunny and almost starting to be warm. Tonight and tomorrow – snow storm.

But also, taking a longer view, I see the predictability. We plant the seeds, the plants come up.

A great podcast I listened to yesterday: Earth as Koan, Earth as Self. Featuring Susan Murphy Roshi from Australia.

She offered many gems of thought in this interview. I found this one particularly meaningful:

Someone came to Zhaozhou asking, When difficult times come to visit us, how should we meet them? Which seems like a very pertinent koan for right where we are. And Zhaozhou just gave a one-word response. He just said, Welcome. Now that welcome goes very wide and deep when you look at it. It is the courage of, or the fearlessness of, not-knowing. To say welcome, in a way, is to already place yourself at home. You welcome a guest coming to meet you in the form of a difficult situation, difficult time. But by saying “welcome,” you are taking the form of host, or the role of host, towards a guest. And that sense of being at home right where you are, located, completely located is already a totally different grounding. You have earthed yourself. But also, not-knowing is a form of welcome towards each thing that is happening. It is not opposing. It is not putting up a barrier. It is finding no obstacle. Welcome, you know. It is such a wide-open state.

Susan Murphy Roshi