Beginner’s Mind, Bright Faith, and the Bulb Show

Two weeks in a new town and I don’t know what I’m doing here.

I’ve not so much been cultivating beginner’s mind as I’ve been gripped by it. Over and over again I say out loud or to myself: “I don’t know why I’ve moved to Northampton?” “I don’t know why I’m starting another yoga teacher training?” “I don’t know why I can’t find an apartment?” And then I come up with stories, but they are just stories.

The truth is I am here and I don’t know. End of story. I can throw out all the whys. This is it.  Not totally comfortable or serene how you might imagine beginner’s mind to be, but then when we really come (or are dragged) into beginner’s mind it is never what we imagine.

Since arriving in Northampton I read Buddhist meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg’s book Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience. I really couldn’t have conjured up (did I conjure it up by seeing it in the bookstore and buying it?) a more perfect companion for being in the midst of my own leap of faith as I start a life in a new place. And so I quote:

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope—a slight change, and all patterns and configurations alter. A fight with a friend causes fifteen other relationships to stir and turn, our lives interconnected like a game of dominoes. One moment everything feels full and perfect, the next an accident happens or we fall sick. Settled comfortably into being single, we meet someone and fall deeply in love. We are going along in one direction when an unforeseen obstacle appears, and we have to swerve out of the way. Suddenly, stunningly, we are in a different life. (p. 76)

With faith we can draw near to the truth of the present moment, which is dissolving into the unknown even as we meet it. We open up to what is happening right now in all its mutability and evanescence. A pain in our body, a heartache, an unjust treatment may seem inert, impermeable, unchanging. It may appear to be all that is, all that ever will be. But when we look closely, instead of solidity, we see porousness, fluidity, motion. We begin to see gaps between the moments of suffering. We see the small changes that are happening all the time in the texture, the intensity, the contours of our pain. (p. 14)

The Bulb Show

So what medicine is there for a girl when she is suffering, enlightening, apartment searching and she needs to get some perspective, come again into her body, align herself with joy? Pure healing: to go with close friends to the botanical gardens at Smith College for the bulb show!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m sorry to say these pictures just don’t capture the smell of all this sweet perfume, dirt, and blossoming.