It appears that the worst is upon us. Not here, but there. And yet here. The heart trembles as it opens to absorb, endure, breathe into the devastation that surged first through the Japanese islands (displacing the main island by eight feet) then through global waters throughout the Pacific, and now poisons global air.
Just as I instinctively began the Buddhist breathing practice called “tonglen” after 9/1, before I learned its name or origin, so I practice it now. Tonglen: inhale the world’s suffering, into the heart, transmute; exhale loving compassion. Again, and again, and yet again.
The axis of the Earth has also shifted, by as much as four inches.
Our “things,” so important to us that we work our butts off to be able to “afford” them in “jobs” that have no intrinsic meaning, float shredded, upon an endless sea of waste.
What matters?
I meditate on this extraordinary set of photos . . .
