2012.06.15 _ 66

Isn't it odd how you have to update the titles of these pages because they lose their underscores? Anyway...

Two things today. Firstly, I'll be away in Chicago until Monday evening. I won't be posting from there. Please assume that I will rejoin you on day 70. Traveling doesn't hold the attraction for me it once did, air travel especially - that which used to hold the greatest joy and fascination). This is not so much aversion nowadays as lack of attachment. The days are gone when I actively desired to be subjected to indifferent staff and humiliating security procedures in preparation for climbing inside a small metal tube and riding thousand of gallons of exploding kerosene. How things change... :)

Over a very pleasant lunch yesterday, someone mentioned how I have this quality of exuding a calming presence when I'm with people. This hasn't always been something that everyone has liked. I remember 20 years ago, I lived in the town of Reading in England, and I occasionally used to visit what can best be described as a "new age bookshop". The owner, a rather highly-strung woman, once told me that she could always tell when I was approaching the shop, without seeing me, because she suddenly found that she couldn't think!

Be well, dear friends.

Interesting Storm. Have a safe and pleasant journey.

I think of thought as being lively and important, but it isn't really. It is after the event and dead like memories. Somebody described philosophy as raking over dead leaves :-) The aliveness that springs from just sitting being aware opens our noticing to encompass bodily sensations and sensitivities that the mind's preoccupations rob us of.