back home again

Nice to be back. It used to trip me out a bit to travel across the country in such a short amount of time, but this trip was timeless. I sat on the plane for a moment, and then I was back home. Like Dorothy clicking her heels together.

There was a funny moment during my connection in Toronto, when immediately after deplaning from my first flight, I heard the final boarding call for my connecting flight, eight gates farther along the terminal. With my sax in one hand and my bag in the other, I sprinted the hundred or so yards to the correct gate and walked onto the plane. Just before reaching the entrance to the men's washroom, someone emerged with a suitcase in tow, looking the other direction. I had to hurdle his case in order to avoid crashing into him. Then I felt a twinge of something when the normal-looking skinny guys running behind me finally caught up, so much out of breath they could barely speak. My breathing had already returned to normal by that point. It was a Terrell Davis moment or something.

Quite a funny story in today's Daily Dharma:

In Tibet there was one Geshe who was meditating on patience. That was his main practice. So he meditated and meditated all the time. Whenever a student would come and say, "Teacher what are you meditating upon?" he would always reply, "Patience." So different students would come and again ask the same question, "What are meditating upon?" "Patience."

One time one student came along and said, "Oh Teacher, what are you meditating upon?" And he replied, "Patience." Then the student said, "Eat Shit." And Geshe-la replied, "What!? What are you talking? You eat shit."

It's very easy for you to be wholesome and virtuous and spiritual when things are going right. But as soon as a little bit of adversity arises, then the real test begins.
--Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche

One of the things that Tolle's book has done for me is that it has given me the right to accept my current state of enlightenment exactly as it is, thereby propelling me even more profoundly into a state of presence than I previously thought myself capable of feeling. For awhile now, I've felt like there was no particular state of enlightenment which was necessary to attain or experience, but Tolle has given me license to accept this fact much more deeply and selflessly than I was previously able to. This feeling of Presence has become continually liberating. And even the odd time when it's not [due to some unconscious actions or thoughts on my part], I return to it almost immediately.

Time no longer feels important as it once did. This moment is continuous, and the past and future are nothing more than mind-play. I reside constantly in the I AM, and nature unfolds as it will. I hold up my hands.

wow -- what snow!

I returned home last night to a nice gift from a neighbour -- someone had recently shoveled out my driveway and front steps, which meant that with last night's huge snowfall, I only had to shovel out about 8 inches of snow instead of 25. Then this morning, soon after clearing out the snowdrift created by the plows at the end of my driveway, a different neighbour appeared with a huge snowblower and offered to do a few runs for me around the vehicles. This helped enormously, especially around the truck at the rear of the driveway, which was buried to the door handles in snow. Even after his help, it still took me 90 minutes to finish shoveling out the vehicles and the back porch, which had 3- and 4-foot drifts piled up against the door and shed. The doorway of the dog house is only half visible, too. What a beautiful difference from Calgary it is down here! I love big snowy winters like this.

I'm taking a break inside now, listening to a loud pop music mix I just made and unpacking. After I'm done that, I'll go reshovel the driveway (it started snowing again an hour ago!) and buy a bunch of groceries. There's nary a crumb to eat in here right now.

(Personal note: after losing 25 pounds on a low-carb diet last fall, I'm starting this with B on Monday. The site is extremely cheesy and promotional, so you have to ignore that a bit. The most salient features of this plan are multiple, smaller meals spaced throughout the day, and short, intense aerobic and weight training workouts. We're using this to transition us to more normal eating habits that include a healthy mix of protein and carbs, and also to help us shed those last remaining pounds and tighten up these looser skins we're carrying around. Bill Phillips is a good guy who developed a simple, effective aerobics and weight training program for his own needs, and then felt driven to help as many other people as possible realize their own physical health and fitness goals. He also makes scads of dough selling his nutritional supplements and protein powders... But he's not all bad -- he gave the winner of his first Body-for-Life challenge his Lamborghini as the grand prize, and all the proceeds from his book sales go to the Children's Make-A-Wish Foundation.)