Spiritual Practice for Difficult Times

Where I sit meditation each morning I look out on a neighbor's ornamental pear tree. Last week during a windy and rainy day, a plastic bag blew up from the ally and lodged in the tree. Each morning when I sat I would look at that plastic bag stuck in the tree. Various thoughts ran through my head about the broken and polluted state of our world. In the last few days that pear tree has blossomed into a canopy of white flowers and now I can no longer see the plastic bag. It's still there but the wholeness and beauty of the pear tree is obscuring it.

So here's the strange thing about this. I know that bag is still there though I can no longer see it and something about that breaks my heart. It's like the sickness of this planet. I know the planet is unwell, though I can not always see it. So when I open to that my heart breaks open. And what follows after that is tenderness.

I don't have to try and be good or kind. That is already here in full measure. I just have to be willing to not look away. It may be the bag in the tree. It may be a homeless person on the street. It may be bleached and dead coral reefs. It may be a brutal war in Ukraine. But what is remarkable about this is that in spite of this suffering, the tree still blooms in a most beautiful and magnificent way. So enjoy whatever season of life you find yourself in. Even in these difficult times, there is still light in the darkness.

~ Roshi Robert Joshin Althouse