Equanimity

Suddenly, this morning during zazen, equanimity arrived. There I sat, longing in one corner, equanimity in the other. Connected to ten thousand threads of life, a gentle pool of still water. And in this, longing was gently present. But now I could sit and watch without succumbing blindly. Threads, light, water....

Longing

"I don't know you, but I want you, all the more for that."

Falling Slowly
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová

Unfocused, raw longing has crept into my zazen lately. None of us are strangers to longing; longing for the past, for the future, for things, for a lover, for some thing that is not now. And that is the crux of it, as longing takes you out of now into time past and time future. Not this breath, but that last-lost-perfect one, or no... the beautiful one-that-is-coming! Now I sit with this longing, unsure of what it is for, but painfully aware of it's intensity in my hara. Watching it during zazen, not acting, not feeding the animal. This ache is hard, exquisite, painful, hungry, and here!