Just Begin Again
On Sunday afternoons, I travel out to a tiny shrine in the country to sit with a cadre of budding Buddhists.? We’re led by a Tibetan lama named Mitch. Mitch plays keys in a band, brews beer, and works at a bookstore. He’s here because, in the final meeting before he died, Mitch’s lama told him to go home and try to get just one person in Mississippi to achieve enlightenment.?
Mitch might be the only lama for at least 200 miles.?
The Glass Porch Shrine is a bright sunroom attached to a plantation-style house in Mississippi owned by an ex-judge. It has tall windows and more plants than people. It creaks and settles while we sit in silence, our eyes open. You can hear the birds in oak trees outside, can hear when people swallow their spit, and sometimes hear the space between your breaths.?
There is a beautiful blue and beige rug, and as the session wears on, it transforms from light to dark, and the colors swirl. It’s psychedelic, and my mind drifts to thinking about the future, about my foot that’s fallen asleep.?
I’m off thinking and not meditating.?
Softly, I repeat to myself Tara Brach’s reminder, “Thinking, thinking,” knowing that this, too, is thinking.?
So I just begin again. Begin again at the breath, blink my eyes to reset the psychedelic rug to normal, watch as a bird chirp enters my mind and leaves.?
Again and again, I just begin again. Thoughts come, they capture me, then they drift away.?
Just begin again.?
These three words are the keys to everything, to enlightenment, to alchemy, to having a life worth living. They are words of attachment and detachment, words that drive you forward but drown the ego.?
As you enter your week, consider how you might just begin again. How you can view your email backlog as a headwaters instead of wading in midstream. How you can look at your colleagues freshly and ask them to tell you again about their daughters, their dogs, their dreams.
Just begin again.?
What will you notice now that you are a beginner? What might you learn?
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You can find more of my work on personal alchemy at?Day Job Alchemy.