Hello Birmingham

Taking a break from my usual cryptic and somewhat detached entries, I feel as though I should touch upon something rather...pressing, personally.

It would seem that the forces that be (Buddha, god, Premier Graham) are conspiring against my staying in this city.

After much soul-searching and many a sleepless, fitful night (more fitful than usual, at least), I have taken it upon myself to change directions (perhaps permanently) in my own proverbial path in the hopes that I will be able to in turn (hopefully permanently) change the direction of the collective path of my human family.

Recent world events (as well as my own recent self-education) have completely reshaped the world as I know it and I feel I can no longer deny my own talents and the direction I have been pulled in and pushed into for years. I feel as though I can no longer, in good conscience, spend my time studying what I have been studying up until this point in life. My focus for the past eight plus years is still my passion, still my primary interest, still a motivating factor for my getting up in the morning and I suspect that it always will be. However, that being said, there are certain things beyond my control that need to be taken into account. Certain items of note in both the Western and overall world stage, particularly political ones, demand my attention more than anything else and I would be remiss if I simply pretended they did not exist.

I do not know where this current new path will take me. I do not know where I will end up or even where I will be a year from today. The only thing I know is that I cannot stand idly by as the entire world is changing at the hands of an elite few and at the expense of the rest. My own humanity demands that I do something and it is this humanity for which I am fighting.

I only hope that it isn't too late.

Where There's Smoke

Anger is a hot coal you clench in the palm of your hand.

Holding on to anger is like grasping that hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

There have been certain individuals in the past that I have harboured extreme anger for. Over time, it has smouldered and smoked, leaving me choking from the lack of air. As a human being, I need to breathe. Breath is vital to my existence, to my mental and physical survival. Slowly, out of necessity, the smoke that has surrounded me and that I have spent years of my time in has been ushered out of the window and waved through the door. The after-effects are not completely gone, true. There is still a faint scent to the air (has something been charred? I'll have to wait until more smoke clears to find out for sure) and my hands are still covered in the grey-black soot of the fire's remains. It will take a while to get the stains off, I think. The fire has been doused though (and some of it left to die out on its own) and now all that remains is smoke and ash.

The walls are covered in black and I can still smell the smoke on my person, but nothing is flickering anymore. There are no live flames for the first time in what has been nearly a lifetime. The crackle of the fire is silenced, replaced by a whirring wind and the soft drip of last night's rain off the once burning roof.

For once, the anger is gone now. It is no longer relevant.

Hope?

Of Monday's Man Found by the Fountain


His hands reach slowly into his pocket, fishing for a coin while keeping his steady gaze on the papers before him. He moves the coin expertly across the slips, back and forth in short, even motions. Queen Elizabeth flickers in the fading sunlight streaming through the windows behind him, her face the only shining thing on his person.

He stops and looks over what he's done. Slowly, once, twice, he allows his crinkled eyes to move over each row. He breathes in, exhales, wipes the table and pushes the slip aside. With the same actions as before, with the same coin, he moves onto the second, this time approaching it with an air of weariness. He takes his time, putting off what deep down he knows is behind those waxy little boxes under that glinting gold.

With two large sweeps of his mangled, well-veined hand, he wipes the remains off the second slip. Adjusting his yellowed, thick rimmed glasses, he then places both hands firmly on either side of the paper and looks it over, hoping, wishing...

But of course, there is nothing. Just as he cannot find the means to buy a proper coat, his current one dusty, tattered, and oversized, he is unable to find redemption in the little numbers Queenie has revealed to him.

Folding his precious slivers of hope together, he tucks them into his pocket, gets up gingerly from his seat, rubbing his feeble knees, goes over to the desk, and waits patiently for his turn. He gets up to the clerk, smiles a weary smile, and asks for two more.

Foreshadowing Things to Come

Here's some temporary food for thought until the next [worthwhile] entry.

Sacrilege? Blasphemy? A lack of faith? Not in Buddhism and not in zazen.


Shame on you, Shakyamuni, for setting the precedent
of leaving home.
Did you think it was not there--
in your wife's lovely face
in your baby's laughter?
Did you think you had to go
elsewhere
to find it?

--Judyth Collin
from The Layman's Lament