THE BRIDGE

I will go back to the seemingly esoteric.  There is that gut level or experiential quickness that I am so sure of. Oh it saved my life a few times. But then I remember and tally up and keep account. I feel confused and get caught in my experience and the memory of this narrative with two streams, movement, currents, bubbles and swirling waters. Underneath this surface it slows down. How do I separate the slow moving quiet waters from that chatty skittering, roaring and groaning surface that is exposed? I can't do it. And so it goes, in my body which is mostly water. I can make a bridge as in yoga, or a back bend. This recognition is slower, methodical and takes a different kind of energy. Not the sprint but the long distance plodding. The streams have cognitive ease built into them. There is no illusion of skill there. It just is.The breath and my watery body are two actual streams. Very absolute alone unto themselves with the relativity of one to the other. "When you mix them you know where they are" (from the the Song of the Jewel Mirror of Awareness.) That is if you do not deny their existence.

The Zen poem The Jewel Mirror of Awareness intrigued and captivated my imagination. It pointed to different ways of knowing. The subtlety of the thought process involved is a study of depth in a puzzling metaphorical cascade that is plunked into my hands to play with. When the book Thinking Fast and Slow was given to me, I chewed softly on it. Fast and Slow how simple. Chomp chomp. It is so much easier to go fast to attain and sanctify our belief in the fallacies we have created. The illusions of knowing why we chose to do what we do and pat ourselves on the backs for our success. Ah! but there are so many things we have no control over.