A Dismal Saturday in January

Sitting at the kitchen eating Rob’s good chili, a thought occurred to me. The reason you can’t find any answer to your questions is that they are on the level of the opposites. Who knows this? Your very own awareness.

Zen koans are an attempt to bring you to awareness. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Once you get that awareness is on the level above the opposites, you see more clearly that Jesus was crucified on the level of life and death. But he was pure awareness and that cannot die.

Vernon Howard used to say, “You were never born and therefore you can never die.” And none of us had any real clue about what he meant.

So now I write these little essays, moving in and out of consciousness like we all do.

January is a cruel month; it certainly started out cruelly, didn’t it? After I ate my chili I got a wet rag and sat down on the kitchen floor. I took a stab at wiping away the obvious stains. That is sort of how we approach our spiritual work. A little dab’ll do ya. Ha ha ha!

After I finished that, I went to the pantry and found an open bag of milk chocolate morsels and finished it off. I do love chocolate. I would make more fudge but that is probably a death wish, You know, death by chocolate. To get my mind off the real deaths at the Capitol just days ago. May God have mercy on our souls.

Vicki Woodyard