Grass Hut - 26 - "Living Here"

[Jishin]

The Dude abides.

Gassho
Meishin
sat today

http://dudeism.com/ordination/

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[AlanLa]

I like how Mr. Connelly says that we live in sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought, but the Heart sutra teaches me that they are all empty. So where do I live? To paraphrase Jon Kabat-Zinn, wherever you go, there you live. But I have been around.

I grew up in a town near Chicago, but for about as long as I can remember I wanted to leave there. I finally did in college, where I got the chance to see more of the country, and it became very clear to me then that I didn't want to live in Illinois at all. I wanted to live elsewhere, preferably the south, but anywhere other than Illinois would suffice. I first moved to Montana, then on an island in upstate Washington, then Seattle, then Tucson, AZ, and now in east Texas, where I have been going on 10 years, the longest I've lived anywhere as an adult. I just got back from a visit to Tucson, and I loved it! Tucson has so much more to offer and I really missed the desert, so coming back home was hard. For at least a few days I dreamed of figuring out a way to move back to Tucson. But one of the best lessons I am learning from Buddhism and zazen is acceptance. I live here now, and I do so for a reason. I don't think it's any coincidence that I have lived here longer than anywhere else. This place, with all its limitations and faults, is a buddha place. Without this practice, I would probably still be chasing after a place to live rather than learning to live in the present and presence of where I am.