Fallow Time

There are esoteric strands of Buddhism with secret teachings revealed only to initiates. In Zen, however, everything is in the open. Its beginning instruction—pay attention!—is its only instruction. When we pay attention, everything is our teacher. Why search far and wide, when everything that’s needed is here?

Our lives unfold from this place, here and now. There’s no other place to start from.  All of history—ours and the universe’s—leads to this very moment. Turn left, turn right? Pay attention and a way opens before you.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to this blog. I have a collection of half-written posts, subsequently abandoned. Some are repetitions of things said before; others are needless provocations. None are what I really want to say. At the same time, I’m nurturing ideas requiring further incubation.  I’m not quite ready to write about them.

I’m in an in-between place, a fallow time. At first, it felt like something negative—like writer’s block or an obstacle in my path. Paying attention, I can see it’s the path itself—a time for stillness;  a time for reflection;  a time to be patient; to time wait for things to emerge into greater clarity.

It’s like a winter field before the spring.

That’s how we move forward with our lives. 

By being inwardly still.  By letting each moment be fully as it is.