by Elihu Genmyo Smith
Sitting is a very simple: being present, experiencing. It is simple, and seemingly any of us can do this. And yet for most of us it is far from easy. How come?
Because in sitting we do not do what we usually do.
What do we NOT do when sitting? We do not live as a ghost, do not cling to the world of ghosts we usually inhabit. Therefore, sitting, being this moment, may seem like taking a great risk.
Much of the time, we live as a ghost in a world of ghosts. What is a ghost? A dead thing that seems to be alive - dead stories of life, dead memories and bodily reactive habits of what was, and what could and should be, which we take as alive and real right now. In living as a ghost we only meet ghosts. Not because others are ghosts but because we see them as ghosts, and we see our self as a ghost.
Look closely! What dead ghost are you keeping around? I don’t mean look at some treasure chest of ghost stories, but this moment, in the midst of this ongoing body-mind-world change that we are, what dead ghost are you holding - holding bodily, holding mentally?
.... (the rest of this article is at http://www.prairiezen.org/Readings/Newsletter/prairiesky.htm
(c) 2013 Elihu Genmyo Smith
