The View from Lazy Point

From a review of this book in the New York Times by Dominique Browning.

"Safina asks us to reconsider the importance of that perennial question: 'What is the meaning of life?' Which, he believes, is the wrong question to be asking because 'it makes you look in the wrong places.' The right question is, 'Where is the meaning in life.' And the place to look is 'between.' In other words, we should look for the ways that all living creatures and all habitats are connected, look for what happens 'between' them. 'Relationships,' he insists, 'are the music life makes. Context creates meaning.

Safina returns again and again to this consideration of interconnectedness, and to the need for each person to cultivate a more considerate life: 'To advance compassion and yet survive in a world of appetites--that is our challenge.' He calls for reverence and caution . . . . 'Ecology, family, community, religion--these words all grope toward the same need: connection, belonging, purpose."

It Felt Love

How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart

And give this world
All its
Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,

Otherwise,
We all remain

Too

Frightened.

--Hafiz from The Gift Poems by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

Shoshin

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

--T.S. Eliot

There is a way of being and thinking in Zen Buddhism known as Shoshin or Beginner's Mind: A ready mind. Boundless. Always a beginner, that kind of mind not already made up, investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking but not with expectation. Observing. Being ready for what arises in this moment.

It also suggests a kind of intimacy, an intimacy with oneself. According to Zen practice, each one of us has the nature of awakening. Beginner's Mind is about a kind of amazement, letting the fixed view go. To not know.

Of all of the suggested meanings for Shoshin, I am especially drawn to wholeheartedness. And boundless.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.

--Shunryu Suzuki

Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971) was a direct spiritual descendant of the renowned 13th-century Zen master Dogen. His hugely influential Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind ranks with the great classics of Zen literature. Learn more about these ideas and practices by clicking on the title of book for a reading from it.

And now let us welcome the new year,
full of things that have never been.

--Rainer Maria Rilke